Yuuri! and the God of Quidditch
by accioavatar
Summary: Going into his final year at Mahoutokoro, House Tanuki Seeker Yuuri Katsuki is trying to recover from his spectacular failure at last year's Quidditch Final. However, Yuuri's life is turned on its head by the sudden arrival of the man of his dreams, living legend and World-Cup-Winning Russian Seeker Victor Nikiforov, who promises to train Yuuri into the champion he was born to be.
1. Chapter One: Prologue

**A/N:** Loosely follows the basic plot of Yuuri! on Ice but takes place in the Wizarding World.

Just so you know, everyone's ages have been changed. Like literally everyone. No age was spared.

Also, this story has been fully written. I'm posting a chapter every 2-3 days (as I put on the finishing touches/edits)  
so if you have abandonment issues caused by reading too many incomplete fics, then have no fear because you won't be burned again by this one!

* * *

 **Prologue: Russia vs. New Zealand: World Cup of Dreams!**

Yuuri Katuski let go of the old ice skate he'd been grasping and felt himself crash face down on solid concrete. He tried to ignore the churning in his gut that was threatening to expel the oyakodon he'd wolfed down for breakfast. Portkey was not his favorite way to travel—it never had been—but he was willing to suffer just about any indignity for a chance to attend a Quidditch World Cup.

"You alright there, Yuuri?" said a voice directly to his left and from above. A hand reached out and pulled his shoulder. Phichit Chulanont had apparently already gotten his bearings and was trying to hoist Yuuri to his feet.

Wiping bits of gravel off of his face, Yuuri stood to take in the view.

"Yeah," he breathed, nausea all but forgotten, "I'm more than alright." He stood before a gently sloping street that culminated in the longest shoutengai he'd ever seen—thousands and thousands of portable shops arranged along a street that seemed to stretch into the sun peeking over the horizon. Signs in dozens of languages boasted merchandise beyond his wildest imagination—souvenirs and food seemed to be the most common, but he also saw a stall of dragon kites breathing what looked to be real fire. Before he could take much more in, an official-looking man in a crisp suit approached their group.

"6:30 arrival?" he asked, checking a clipboard stacked with paper that appeared to be struggling to escape, "House Tanuki Quidditch Team from Mahoutokoro?"

"Yes," Yuuko confirmed, stepping up to greet the man. "Yuuko Tsurumine, Team Captain."

The man counted them, making a mark on his clipboard as he did so. One of the pages detached, folded itself in midair into a long ticket, and landing neatly in Yuuko's outstretched hand.

"Area 14, all the way down and to your right. Next group!" said the man. Yuuri hurried out of the way as a large group of wizards and witches dropped to the ground immediately behind him.

"You'd think they'd give us something softer to land on," Takeshi Nishigori complained, rubbing his back.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," Yuuko chimed in with a smile.

"Thanks a lot," Takeshi said, "You won't be so cheerful when it turns out I'm too injured to play and you'll have to find yourself another Beater who's willing to make nice with Seung-gil."

"Yes please," said Seung-gil Lee. Yuuko ignored him.

"Guang Hong could step in!" she offered.

Guang Hong Ji looked up at her in terror.

"Kidding!" she told him quickly.

They made their way down the shoutengai. Yuuri found it difficult to keep walking—the urge to stop and stare (or worse, shop) was nearly overwhelming. _One token_ , he'd told himself before he left. A cup, a flag, a figurine, anything was fine. But just _one_.

"Look!" Phichit cried, grabbing his arm and pointing at a stand full of self-playing ocarinas. What felt like seconds later, Yuuri's wallet was out and his bag was crammed to bursting with a hat, pins, a bathrobe, several posters rolled into scrolls, enough stickers to cover his entire school trunk, miniature Quidditch figurines made of chocolate and a full-color commemorative magazine.

"I thought we all agreed we were rooting for New Zealand," Seung-gil said, grabbing one of the posters out of Yuuri's bag and unrolling it as they once again began to make their way down the shoutengai—much poorer than when they started.

" _You_ agreed," Yuuko said, butting in between them and beaming at the poster, "Yuuri isn't rooting for a _team_ so much as a _person_."

"I can see that," Seung-gil replied, glaring judgmentally at the moving figure on the poster. "Are all of these of...?"

"Of course they are!" Yuuko told him, snatching the poster and handing it back to Yuuri, who carefully re-rolled it and placed it back in his bag, face burning. They reached the end of the shoutengai—with only a couple more shopping stops, mostly for Phichit—and took a right up a short hill. The camping area was arranged into hundreds of neat rows of small red-roofed tents. As they reached the summit of the hill, the ticket Yuuko had been holding onto folded itself into a paper crane, wrested itself from Yuuko's grasp, and sped off down one of the rows.

"C'mon!" Yuuko shouted, sprinting off after it. The rest of the team followed her—Yuuri couldn't get a good look at anything as he hurtled past families and groups of friends gathering outside the tents.

After several careening turns, the crane stopped abruptly outside an empty tent, unfolded itself once more, and flew into a plaque in the top of the tent. It now read "House Tanuki Quidditch Team."

Yuuri had never been in a wizarding tent before, but at seventeen, after ten years in the wizarding world, he knew enough about how things worked not to be too surprised at how big it was on the inside. It honestly wasn't much different than the House Tanuki dormitory. Floors covered in tatami, futons separated by partitions, a communal area in the center with sliding doors.

Seung-gil made a beeline for the closest futon and started to collapse.

"Nice try!" Takeshi told him, grabbing his arm and forcing him back upright.

"Ugh," Seung-gil groaned. "We got up so early. I just want to take a nap."

"Sorry Grumpy, no can do." Phichit told him cheerfully. "Game starts in an hour and a half, we have to get to the stadium."

"You're kidding?" Yuuri gasped. He glanced down at his watch. Sure enough, Phichit was right. How long had they spent shopping?

"I wish he was," Mitsumi Yoshimura muttered, dumping her bag on one of the futons. She reached into her bag and pulled out a headband with New Zealand bobbles sticking out of it. Mitsumi was normally a fairly solemn girl, so it was kind of a treat to see her looking so ridiculous. The pin she'd stuck to the front of her jumper read "I'm a Keeper!"

"Just drop your stuff Yuuri, come on!" Yuuko grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the front of the tent. Yuuri just barely managed to put on his hat and stuff his program into his pocket before he and the rest of the team were once again sprinting down the rows of tents.

Yuuri was positive that No-Maj's regularly vacationed to the stretch of beach on which the stadium was erected, but there was no sign of them now. An open-air field above the sand with goalposts higher than any Yuuri had ever seen was encased by twenty thousand glittering golden chairs set into stands. He didn't have much of a chance to take in the view before Yuuko was once again pulling him up the stairs by his arm to reach their box.

"We made good time!" Yuuri protested. "The match won't start for another hour!"

"You want to miss the pregame show?" Yuuko called back.

Well. Yuuri didn't know what to expect in a pre-game show, but there'd been no mention of such thing in his program. That sort of thing was probably the hardest thing about being a wizard in a family of No-Majs—learning things about the world as he went along that other people just seemed to know. Although, to be fair, he wasn't sure how Yuuko knew either. Her parents were No-Majs too—they'd grown up in Hasetsu together, and Yuuri didn't know what the odds were that he and his childhood friend would just happen to be a wizard and a witch, but they couldn't have been high. He counted himself very lucky for her company at Mahoutokoro.

"How did you know about the pregame show?" Yuuri called up to her. It was getting difficult to hear her through the crowd.

"Takeshi," was her answer. Ah, of course. "Here's our box!"

Calling their box the nosebleeds would've been generous. They were directly behind the Russian goalpost—not exactly ideal for seeing the New Zealand Keeper, Mitsumi whined, but, as Guang Hong pointed out, a great way to check out their Chasers. Yuuri feigned interest in this discussion, but it was hard to concentrate through his excitement. The Quidditch World Cup, and of course the Russian team had made it to the final, and it was being hosted in Japan. Yuuri didn't know those odds of that either, but he didn't think they could've been much better than the ones against him and Yuuko both attending Mahoutokoro.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came a commanding female voice from far, far below. The stadium gradually quieted down. Yuuri could hear the whispers of a hundred other languages echoing from her words—the result of a powerful translation spell.

"The Japanese Ministry of Magic is proud to present to you the 428th Quidditch World Cup. My name is Ayame Yamamoto, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports and I give you...the New Zealand team mascots!"

Yuuri brought his Omnioculars up to his glasses and focused on the ground. An enormous geyser erupted out from the sand in the center of the pitch, swirling around to form what looked like a slow-motion hurricane. Yuuri lowered his Omnioculars—the hurricane was easily visible to everyone in the stadium.

The display within the hurricane would've been frightening if it didn't look so well-controlled. A dozen creatures were doing a kind of synchronized swimming routine within the water—Yuuri would've called them sharks except that they were so dragon-like. He'd never seen sharks with scales like these, or such long tails. Yuuri glanced at Phichit, who shrugged. Phichit was top of the class in Care of Magical Creatures, and apparently even he didn't know what these were. Yuuri watched, transfixed for at least ten minutes as the hurricane grew larger and larger, eventually nearly filling the stadium.

"I give you...Burdak!" said Yamamoto from far below.

A completely dry woman in sparkling blue robes shot out from the waters in which the dragon-sharks continued to swim. Yuuri barely had time to wonder what spell had kept her from getting soaked when her teammates began to emerge one by one.

"McKenzie! Singh! Moon! Ngata! Patel! And... Ponika!"

As soon as Ponika, the Seeker for New Zealand, appeared, the dragon-sharks turned toward the sand and dove down into the eye of the hurricane. Once the tail of the last one had whipped out of sight, the hurricane stilled and then seemed to collapse. Everyone, including Yuuri, got splashed. Apparently the waterproofing spell was only for the players. Despite being wet, the cheers from the crowd were thunderous.

"And now, I give you...Russia!"

A flock of amazingly beautiful red and gold birds flew from the sky into the stadium. At first, Yuuri thought they were phoenixes, but then he felt the heat as they soared past him. Where phoenixes had tail plumes, these birds had fire.

"What are these?" Yuuri shouted at Phichit over the noise. He didn't really expect an answer, but Phichit surprised him.

"Firebirds," Phichit hollered back. "Don't catch the feathers, they're cursed!"

 _Good to know_ , thought Yuuri, as a cascade of shimmering feathers rained down upon the stadium. He grabbed onto Guang Hong's arm as he reached out for a purple feather floating tantalizingly in front of his face.

The birds made a circle in the center of the pitch, facing outward and forming a ring of fire in between them.

"Travkin!" said Yamamoto. Travkin flew up from the ground and through the ring of fire, emerging in his scarlet robes and doing a lap high in the air above the stadium

"Rozovsky!" did the same. And after him, "Mitkin! Shcherbina! Isayev! Chernetsky! And... Nikiforov!"

And there he was. Victor Nikiforov, in person. The youngest world-class Seeker since Viktor Krum.. The number one reason Yuuri spent his summer working at his parents' onsen—slaving over the hot springs in the broiling, humid heat—saving up to come to the World Cup. The subject of all the posters above his futon in his bedroom. The subject of all six posters he bought today. Living legend Victor Nikiforov.

Victor emerged from the flames like a vision straight out of Yuuri's dreams. He tossed his silver hair back from his forehead and began his lap around the stands. As he neared the Russian goalpost, Yuuri removed his Omnioculars—getting a look at Victor with his own eyes was an opportunity he couldn't pass up, despite the temptation to keep the Omnioculars glued to his face and be able to see the stitching on Victor's robes.

Victor sped along the stands, waving like a queen to the crowds. And then, to Yuuri's utter disbelief, he slowed down near the goalpost, scanning their section, which to him could only have looked like a sea of faces hidden by Omnioculars. He looked past Yuuri's row and then _actually did a double-take._ Yuuri covered his mouth with both hands to stifle his gasp. Victor's eyes locked onto Yuuri's—there could be no mistaking it. A smile spread across his lips and he winked. And then, as though he'd never been there at all, he was off again down the other side of the pitch.

Had it not been for Phichit and Guang Hong gripping him on either side and screaming in his ears, Yuuri was positive he would've fainted. He wished he'd captured the wink on the Omnioculars—then he could've replayed it to himself on a loop for the rest of his existence. As it was, he was already feeling as though he had possibly imagined it.

"He winked at you!" Yuuko shrieked. "Oh my _God!_ Victor Nikiforov _winked_ at you!"

He hadn't imagined it then, if Yuuko had seen it too. Filled with a giddiness he'd never experienced, Yuuri joined in the screaming and the cheering of the crowd as the referee reached the center of the pitch and released the Snitch.

The Omnioculars were a permanent fixture on Yuuri's face for the rest of the game. It was impossibly fast-paced. The Chasers were like a purple blur—the blues and reds of their uniforms blending together as they hurtled up and down the pitch with unreal speed. Yuuri had to force himself to pay attention to the score and not just search the skies for Victor.

"Burdak! Isayev! Travkin! Shcherbina! McKenzie! Moon!" The voice of Yamamoto as the Chasers passed the Quaffle back and forth blended into the background. Victor was hovering near the sand by the New Zealand goalposts. Ponika not far above him. Evidently, neither of them had seen the Snitch.

"Forty to eighty, New Zealand!" said Yamamoto. "And now it's Isayev again with the Quaffle! Travkin! Burdak! Moon!"

"Block him Rozovsky!" Yuuri heard Mitsumi shriek from the other side of Guang Hong. Evidently she had switched allegiances mid-game. "Yes!"

Yuuri zoomed in on the handle of Victor's broomstick. Underneath Victor's long fingers he could make out the words Kinya 2020. The most adaptable, lightweight broom in existence. Yuuri had never even touched one.

Suddenly he was staring at the air—Victor had flown away. As Yuuri refocused his Omnioculars, his stomach dropped—Ponika had seen the Snitch and was barreling forward at top speed.

"Ponika has spotted the Snitch!" Yamamoto shouted, "Nikiforov's seen it too but he's going to have to find a way around Ponika if he has any hope of catching it— "

Indeed, Victor was directly behind Ponika, tailing him closely as he wove back and forth to block him. At the very last second, Victor swung his entire body underneath the broom and leveled with Ponika, speeding up and stretching out those long fingers, closing them around the Snitch from below just as Ponika reached forward and grasped at the air where the Snitch had just been.

The noise was thunderous. Over the cheering, Yuuri could faintly hear Yamamoto still commentating "That's two hundred and forty to ninety, folks! Victor Nikiforov has caught the Snitch and Russia wins the World Cup!"

Yuuri cheered along with the rest of his team. Phichit was trying to talk to him, not that he could've heard anything over the applause, but Yuuri only had eyes for Victor. The Russian team swooped down to celebrate with him, they had tackled him to the sand as the Cup was brought out and presented to the team.

After New Zealand had skulked off the field and Russia made their way to the showers, the people in the stands began to exit. Yuuri felt that the word "jostled" didn't do this situation justice; he was moving, whether he liked it or not, as part of a crowd so tightly packed that he probably could've lifted his feet off the floor and just let the momentum from the other bodies pressed against his carry him down the stairs. It was an enormous relief to reach the open air again.

"How about going back to the shoutengai for dinner?" Phichit suggested.

"No," said Seung-gil. "No way. I'm getting my nap."

"It's going to be super crowded," Takeshi agreed.

"I'm hungry," Yuuko added.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Takeshi said.

"I'm still out," said Seung-gil. He headed back to the tent as the rest of the team went down for dinner.

The shoutengai was more crowded than Yuuri had imagined, which was saying a lot. He struggled to keep sight of Yuuko's ponytail through the masses, until one of the stalls caught his eye.

He had never seen a shop that was quite so simultaneously ugly and alluring. The exterior was painted lurid orange and purple, and the wizards working inside wore magenta robes. A sign on the front read Weasley's Wizard Wheezes _._ Yuuri had no idea how he could have possibly missed it last time.

"Hey guys," he called to the rest of the team, "I'm just gonna..."

Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was full of products that would get someone expelled from Mahoutokoro. Candies that could make you sick, prank items, fireworks. Yuuri entertained himself briefly imagining the looks on his teachers' faces if someone were to let off one of the Decoy Detonators during an exam, but then his interest was drawn to a cage full of what appeared to be pink and purple balls of fluff.

To his surprise and utter delight, one of the puffballs suddenly rolled across the cage and stuck out it's little face at him curiously. Yuuri offered it his finger. It _licked_ him.

Phichit would absolutely _die_ for one of these. Yuuri was positive that the only reason he didn't already have one was that he hadn't seen the shop. He rushed back out into the shoutengai with the intent of dragging Phichit in to show him, but Phichit wasn't there. None of his teammates were there. Yuuri realized with dread that they must not have heard him when he said he was going to step into the shop, and accidentally moved on without him.

He tried to ignore the panic bubbling up his throat. He was going to find them. The shoutengai was impossibly crowded, full of thousands of people, but...Yuuri decided to double back down the street to see if maybe they'd gone back to look for him.

As he passed a red tent close to the end of the shoutengai, he felt an arm around his shoulders. Phichit. Thank God. He turned with relief and right into the face of a guy with blond hair and the longest eyelashes he'd ever seen.

"Hi!" he said with a thick European accent of some sort, "I'm Chris! Did you get lost?"

"Yes, actually," Yuuri told him, with no small amount of relief. Despite his discomfort with being touched by strangers, Yuuri could tell immediately that Chris was harmless.

"Oh! The winners tent is this way," he steered Yuuri toward the red tent.

"I—"

"Password?" asked a very stern man standing outside.

"Oh come on, you just let me out," Chris pouted.

The man made no move to let Chris enter.

"Christophe Giacometti? No?" Chris wheedled. "Fine. Makkachin."

The man nodded curtly and stepped aside. Chris steered Yuuri into the tent. Russian flags hung from glittering gold walls. Victory music could just barely be heard over the sounds of laughter and conversation coming from all sides. Fountains of shimmering champagne sat on tables draped in gold tablecloths. Yuuri immediately recognized at least four players from the Russian team from one quick glance around the room.

"Oh!" Yuuri said, getting ready to alert him to the misunderstanding, "But I'm not— "

"You look nervous," Chris decided, tapping the side of his cheek. "Have a Firewhiskey. I'm going to go find Victor again. Victor!"

And with that, Chris left Yuuri standing in the bustle of the winner's tent, holding a glass of Firewhiskey and as confused as he'd ever been in his life. He raised the glass to his lips and took a sip.

* * *

 **A/N:** A tremendous thank you to the following people for the following things:

-slytherproud (AO3) for ghostwriting literally all the Quidditch because I hate/suck at writing action. Also for the help with the Japanese, and with filling in all the details about Mahoutokoro.  
-Jillian_Bowes (AO3) for goading me into writing this when I texted you in the middle of the night with "dude what if Victor went to Durmstrang and then just showed up at Yuuri's school," and editing it and for creating the Quidditch game schedule.  
-Dawn_Seeker (AO3) for beta-reading and editing and all the encouragement.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two: Yuuri vs. Children: Orientation on the First Day of School-With a Twist!**

Yuuri swore his school trunk got heavier every year. Though, he reminded himself, this would be the last year he had to lug the thing up the staircases leading into the school entrance. Today was the last first day of term. Ever. Yuuri swallowed a sudden lump of anxiety. Next year he'd be out in the real world, playing Seeker for the Toyohashi Tengu or—his heart sank—somewhere else.

"Please don't get ahead of me!" he called to the first years who were supposed to be obediently following behind him, but had started to spread out along the steps. He normally avoided using magic in front of them before they'd even gotten through the front doors, but his trunk was so heavy (and, though he didn't want to admit it, he was horribly out-of-shape), so he decided to just screw it. Yuuri pulled out his wand and silently levitated his trunk behind him. Four of the eight kids in the group immediately stopped to stare at the trunk, the other four kept climbing as though nothing had happened. That meant four No-Majs' kids, then.

"Did you do that?" one of them asked.

"Yes," he said, reaching the top of the steps and trying not to show how winded he'd gotten. He waved his wand and the trunk sped off by itself in the direction of his dormitory. Yuuri turned to face the kids and waited until the last pink-robed boy reached the top of the steps before starting his spiel.

"Welcome to Mahoutokoro! I know they already told you my name but I'll say it again in case you didn't hear, I'm Yuuri Katsuki. I'm in my eleventh and last year and I'm on the Student Council."

"Do you have a girlfriend?" asked a kid with a red streak in his blond hair.

Yuuri blinked, and stared the kid down. He grinned back, showing a missing front tooth.

"I'm not going to answer any questions that don't have to do with the tour. As you can see, this is the front entrance to the school and the door is closed. You can't get in unless you're holding your wand. All your wands are already here. They'll be dispensed to you at the beginning of each school day and then collected by that komainu right there."

Yuuri pointed to the jade statue to the right of the front doors.

"How come you have your wand?" a girl asked.

"Because once you reach your fifth year and become a boarding student, you keep your wand on you at all times," Yuuri explained. "As day students, your wand stays at the school when you're at home."

"Oh."

Yuuri instructed the kids to reach out their wand arm to the komainu in turns. They giggled and shrieked each time its mouth opened to dispense their wand. Once everyone was armed (God, these seven-year-olds holding wands always made him nervous) the doors swung open and they stepped inside the genkan. The kids gaped—they'd probably never been in such a large foyer. All the kids reached down to remove their shoes when Yuuri pointed to the getabako.

"Don't ever forget to take your shoes off when you come inside," Yuuri informed them (one kid looked like he was about to keep walking past the getabako), toeing off his loafers and levitating them into a cubby. "If you walk any further than the genkan wearing shoes your feet will break out in hives and you'll have to go to the school nurse."

The kids stared at him as though they were expecting him to suddenly say "gotcha!" or "just kidding!" Yuuri wished he was. The humiliating memory of the time he'd forgotten to do that while he was in a hurry in his second year burst to the front of his mind.

"Shoes off? Good. Put your wand in the pocket in the front of your robes. You're not going to need it today."

The mixture of disappointment and relief as they stored their wands was written plainly on their faces. Yuuri turned to make sure he wasn't going to run into anyone, then walked backward down the main hallway as he spoke."

"As first years, almost everything you'll be doing is on the ground floor. Your classrooms are the ones closest to the front entrance. The more advanced stuff is closer to the roof, or outside. You know you're getting good when you have to climb six flights of stairs or walk to the other side of the island to get to every class."

That earned him a collective giggle. Yuuri smiled down at them.

"Where is the bathroom?" one of them asked. Yuuri sighed.

After all the kids had used the bathroom, he started over with the tour.

"So the curriculum is standardized through your seventh year. You'll be taking Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Charms and Herbology to start with." Yuuri rattled off the list of classes on his fingers.

"When do we learn to fight?" asked the boy with the red streak.

"Uh...do you mean Defensive Magic? You start that in your fifth year."

"Why?" he demanded. "I'm ready to learn now!"

 _Because nobody wants to be caught in the line of fire when seven-year-olds duel,_ Yuuri thought to himself.

"We start with the basics here," Yuuri told him patiently. "It's a matter of safety. On the right here is your History of Magic classroom."

The kids peered inside.

"This looks just like No-Maj school!" red-streak boy commented.

"That one does, yeah," Yuuri agreed. "They don't all—just be patient."

Yuuri showed them the rest of their classrooms one by one. The Potions room got the biggest reaction because the day students' potions teacher, Minako Okukawa, kept all the supplies in plain sight on the shelves instead of in a supply closet. Yuuri would've bet that none of these kids had ever seen half the ingredients lining the walls. He had to practically drag them out of the classroom.

"We're almost done with the ground floor. This hallway here leads to the shokudou. Older students eat all their meals here, but you'll just be having lunch while you're day students."

Yuuri led them into the shokudou, which was split into four sections by two intersecting hallways. Each section held a dozen or so small tables. Most of the school was here, waiting for breakfast. Yuuri's stomach rumbled. He knew he'd get a late breakfast along with these kids after the tour, but he saw Phichit, Yuuko and Takeshi sitting together at a table with an empty space where he should've been sitting.

"Why is it split into four?" asked the boy with the red streak in his hair.

"What's your name again?" Yuuri asked him.

"Kenjirou Minami," he answered.

"Well Minami," Yuuri said, "you sit according to your houses. Day students can sit in any section, but once you're assigned a house for fifth year, you sit with them for meals."

"My cousin goes to Hogwarts in Scotland," Minami informed Yuuri. "They have four houses."

"So do we," Yuuri said, "I'll tell you about them later. During meals, your food will fly out on plates through one of the four entrances and onto the tables."

"Where do the teachers eat?" Minami asked. He seemed to have designated himself as the spokesperson for the group. Either that or he was particularly nosy. Or just obnoxious. Or a mixture of all three.

"The teachers have their own quarters and they eat there. Students aren't allowed into that section of the castle," Yuuri told him.

"Why not?" Minami asked. _Probably because of kids like you,_ thought Yuuri.

"Moving on," he said, clapping his hands together, "I'm going to take you out through the courtyard and onto the grounds."

They walked past the Herbology gardens. He showed them the Exploding Snap and Gobstones tables in the courtyard, as well as the appointed studying areas for anyone who felt like getting homework done outside in the fresh air.

"What's that?" Minami asked, pointing to a stone staircase leading up a gently sloping hill toward a thicket of brush and overhanging trees.

"That is the Student Counsel onsen," Yuuri explained, heart speeding up at the sight of his favorite place on the entire island, "It's for Student Council members and Quidditch captains to use to..." _...to hide from you people_ , he didn't say.

"How do you get on the Student Council?" Minami asked.

"They choose a boy and a girl each year starting in eighth, so there are eight of us altogether."

"Are we going to see the Quidditch pitch?" one of the girls piped up. Finally, someone who wasn't Minami!

Yuuri smiled at her. "Turn to the left," he told her.

The group squinted out at the ocean.

"There!" she squealed. "There are goalposts sticking out of the water!"

"Where are the stands?" Minami asked.

"The stands only appear during games," Yuuri told them. "They're too big—No-Maj's from the nearby islands might see them when they fly over."

"But not the castle?" asked Minami. "The castle has to be bigger than the stands, they—"

"The castle has magical protections to keep No-Maj's from seeing it, but that doesn't extend to the water." Yuuri said. "If it did, No-Maj parents couldn't come watch their kids play."

"You're on a Quidditch team, right?" one of the other kids asked.

"Yeah," said Yuuri, throat tightening. He'd really been hoping to avoid this topic, but..." I'm the Seeker for House Tanuki."

"I know who you are!" said the girl who had brought up Quidditch in the first place. "My sister told me about you! House Tanuki lost the Cup last year because you— "

"Um," Yuuri stuttered, ignoring the tears springing to his eyes. "Let's uh...let's go back inside and I'll show you your Astronomy classroom. That one's upstairs."

 _Deep breaths,_ he told himself as he led the group up a staircase and to the Astronomy tower. Just keep steering them off the subject of House Quidditch and there'll be smooth sailing...

Yuuri opened the door to the Astronomy classroom—the one that never failed to impress.

"Wow," Minami breathed.

Because day students needed to study Astronomy too early in the day to look at the real night sky, their Astronomy classroom ceiling was enchanted to look like _last night's_ sky. Walking into this room always felt like stepping into yesterday. Most people loved it, though it made Yuuri uncomfortable because it was like looking back. Thinking about the mistakes of yesterday, of the past week—of all the mistakes he'd ever made, were the thoughts that kept him tossing and turning long into the night.

"So," said Yuuri, herding them out of the room and back onto the staircase, "I'm going to give you a quick overview of the parts of the castle you won't really be using, just in case you get lost and need to find your way back."

"If we get lost, can't we just ask one of the kakejiku where to go?" asked Minami, pointing at the scrolls on the walls. "My cousin said, at Hogwarts— "

"If you get lost, ask another student," Yuuri interrupted him. "Some of the kakejiku will help you, but a lot of them think it's funny to give you wrong directions on purpose." A young girl in heavy makeup batted her eyelashes at him from a nearby kakejiku. Yuuri gave her his best dead-eyed stare—she was the one who'd made him twenty minutes late to History of Magic during his second week at Mahoutokoro. Yuuri wondered if she remembered. She giggled.

Yuuri took them down a couple flights and onto a landing with four staircases leading upwards.

"These are the older students' dormitories," he said, pointing at each them as he named them. "House Tanuki—the raccoon, House Suzaku—that's the bird, House Kirin—the one with the horse head, and House Komainu—the lion guardian."

"My cousin at Hogwarts got sorted into her house by a hat," Minami said to no one in particular. "She's in Gryffindor. Their symbol is a lion."

Yuuri wondered to himself how on earth someone could get sorted by a hat, but decided not to ask Minami to explain further because they would probably be there all day if he did. "Well at Mahoutokoro, we're assigned houses by the teachers. All the day students' teachers get together at the end of the school year and assign the houses. They usually try to keep friends together, as long as you're not too disruptive. Inside each dormitory is a shoin where you can study and hang out together, then sliding doors leading to partitioned futons where we sleep."

Yuuri led his group back down to the shokudou and moved to sit automatically at his normal spot in the nearly empty room. To his displeasure, every single one of the kids decided to crowd around the same table with him. Minami's elbow was firmly wedged beneath his ribs. Yuuri looked across the hall at the House Kirin section—the other eleventh year on the Student Council had the same problem. She gave him a pained smile and Yuuri tried and failed to raise his arm to wave at her.

Breakfast appeared the moment everyone had settled—fried pork with ginger, miso soup, rice and eggs. Yuuri finished his food a lot faster than anyone else and debated momentarily with himself before tapping his place setting with his wand. A second serving of everything soared through the door and landed in front of Yuuri.

"You're having more?" asked one of the girls. "Is that why you're so fat?"

 _Ouch_. Yuuri cringed.

"Don't say that!" Minami cried. "Yuuri is perfect!"

"You, uh, you can tap your wand on the table like I did if you need more food," Yuuri told them, choosing not to respond to either comment.

"Who makes the food?" Minami asked.

"It's just Ishikawa Self-Cooking Appliances," Yuuri said, "We take turns by house going into the kitchens and instructing the utensils what to make. I think House Suzaku did this—they're usually the ones who wanted eggs for breakfast last year."

Minami nodded. "That's what my mom uses too," he said. "But she just makes whatever I ask for."

"They don't do that here," Yuuri told him. "We all eat the same thing. When you're boarding you can ask your parents to send you snacks from home if there's something you really want."

"My parents are No-Maj's," one girl said. "How do they send mail here?"

"We use crows for most deliveries," Yuuri explained. "They come in after dinner and wait for you in the dormitories."

"At Hogwarts," Minami said, "my cousin said owls deliver mail during breakfast. They just drop it into your food."

That sounded _so_ unhygienic, but Yuuri just nodded and took a big bite to refrain from criticizing.

After breakfast, Yuuri carefully extracted himself from the first years and made his way up to the dormitories. Yuuko and Takeshi were lounging together in the shoin, her legs draped over his lap.

"Yuuri!" she called as soon as he'd entered the room, beckoning him over. He sat down next to them.

"How was the grand tour?" she asked.

"Were we ever that small?" Yuuri replied. "I wasn't that annoying, was I?"

"Never!" Yuuko said, shaking her head. "You looked like you were about ready to wet your pants on the first day. I don't think you said a word to anyone but me before the second week. But hey, you finished breakfast, right? I have a surprise for you!"

Yuuko dug into her pocket and what she pulled out twisted Yuuri's guts into knots.

"Got special permission for you to practice with this," she beamed at him, holding out a school Snitch. "No one was supposed to use the pitch today, but I convinced Okukawa that you needed the practice."

"You weren't wrong," Yuuri muttered. He averted his eyes, even as he took the Snitch from Yuuko's outstretched hand.

"Come on, Yuuri," Yuuko said gently, leaning toward him. "No one blames you for last year."

"Even if it was technically your fault," Takeshi added. Yuuko smacked him on the arm.

"You're not helping," she hissed.

"Thanks guys," Yuuri said, glumly. He held up the Snitch. "I guess I'll just...yeah."

He stopped in his dormitory to retrieve his broomstick, attach all his Victor posters to the wall above his bed, and then dragged himself down the stairs, outside the castle and over the grounds to the edge of cliff that overlooked the shore and the pitch out in the ocean.

A deep melancholy settled in his bones as he looked out at the pitch. The sea was calm and shimmering in the mid-morning sun, not like it had been during the Final last year—but Yuuri doubted he'd ever be able to even look at those goalposts again without dread.

He wasn't sure how long he just...stood there. Maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty. Eventually, he decided it wasn't going to get any easier. And what would it look like if someone showed up—him standing there like a moron staring at the empty site of his greatest failure? Pathetic, that's what.

Yuuri threw the Snitch out over the ocean where it took flight and zoomed out of sight. He scanned the sky for No-Maj airplanes one last time before he mounted his broom and kicked off the ground into the air. He felt like he was barely moving—had his Suzume 6 gotten slower? No, no he'd just gotten heavier. Yuuri remembered taking flight for the first time during his fifth year and feeling like his hair was going to be blown clean off his head by the force of the wind. Now it was as if he was moving backwards. As if it couldn't get any worse, the Snitch was nowhere to be seen.

Yuuri did a few laps around the pitch to calm his nerves, ignoring the Snitch and focusing on going as fast as possible. He began to feel the wind in his hair again, which was comforting. His grip on his broomstick was sure and steady, and he moved through the air with ease, even if he was a little slower. He inhaled the smell of the sea deeply and closed his eyes. There was no pressure right now. If he messed up—well, then at least no one was watching. This was what he loved about Quidditch—the feeling of familiarity, the sense of surety when he caught sight of the Snitch and knew that he was the one who would catch it, the final burst of speed as his fingers closed around the cold metal...

Yuuri opened his eyes. The Snitch was hovering in the center of the pitch, feet above the surface of the water. Yuuri didn't hesitate—he dove down. _No one is watching_ , he reminded himself. As he sped toward it, the image of Victor at the World Cup entered his imagination.

 _I could be Victor,_ he thought. He caught his reflection in the water. And then he let himself swing downward, thighs clenched tightly around his broomstick, hair grazing the surface of the sea. He reached out and the Snitch slid easily into his hand. The flapping of the wings against his fingers was soothing in a way nothing else had ever been. He stopped, hovering upside-down in midair, and let out a deep sigh.

As he swung himself back upright on his broom, he caught a glimpse of someone on the cliff watching him. He whirled around and sped forward but once he got high enough to see who it was, they'd vanished. Despite the perfect play he'd just executed, Yuuri felt his stomach drop. That was Victor's move—he had no right to just...copy him. It was humiliating, the thought that someone had seen it. They'd probably bring it up at dinner and have the whole school laughing. What if they'd gotten pictures?

" _How come you couldn't pull that off last year?" he imagined someone saying. "You know, back when you weren't fat?"_

" _Seriously, were you not even paying attention during the final match?"_

Yuuri wiped his nose with his sleeve and scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He let go of the Snitch and it zipped off again.

Yuuri practiced through lunch—he felt like he'd throw up if he'd tried to eat—and only decided to call it quits when the sun was dangerously close to the horizon. Unfortunately, it took him twenty minutes to catch the Snitch again after he'd decided to wrap it up, and he'd accidentally taken a dunk into the frigid ocean as he grabbed it.

Sputtering and shivering, Yuuri stumbled onto the land as he dismounted and pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes. Despite his small victory towards the beginning of his little all-day practice session, he was more frustrated and disheartened than he'd been when he started. As he trudged down the grounds, he looked up at the sun setting on the overhang of trees that covered the onsen. The onsen! Yuuri could think of nothing he'd like more than to sink into the hot spring and cry it out. He changed direction abruptly and nearly tripped over himself to get up the stone steps.

He set his broomstick to the side, and gave the password to the frog statue guarding the onsen. It slid aside to let him in.

Yuuri was already sliding his wet shirt up his chest when he realized he was not alone. At first, he was certain he was hallucinating. Maybe he should've eaten lunch after all, maybe it was low blood sugar—because what he was seeing was not possible. He blinked several times, but the image did not change.

Victor Nikiforov was ten feet away from him, soaking naked in the onsen.

* * *

 **A/N:** pottermore has a small section on Mahoutokoro and I've included as much of that as I could in this story. The rest of the details come from a weekend-long brainstorming session between me and slytherproud (AO3)!


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three: Yuuri vs. Death by Shock: What Not to Do When a God is Dropped on Your Doorstep**

Yuuri only started believing his own eyes when Victor met his gaze and stood to greet him.

"Yuuri!" he exclaimed, smiling warmly and extending his hand. _Does he want me to get naked into the onsen with him?_ Yuuri thought. _I will keel over dead._

"Uh," Yuuri squeaked. That was it. That was the only noise he felt capable of making right now.

"I couldn't find you in the castle, but that nice boy Phichit gave me the password and told me to check outside in the onsen! He said it's your favorite place and I can't say I blame you. I'm probably never going to leave!"

Yuuri was just trying desperately to remember to breathe and also to keep his eyes above waist level because if he didn't, he was going to get an eyeful of Victor's junk and he was pretty sure he wouldn't survive it. Yuuri tried to pull himself together enough to say something.

"What are you doing here?" he managed to rasp. There. Actual words. Probably not the words he had been hoping for, but anything was better than his first thought, which was _please marry me._

"I transferred here!" Victor said with a smile. Yuuri just gripped the hem of his shirt harder.

"You...you go to Mahoutokoro now?" he whispered faintly.

"Yes!" I just got here this morning. I missed the orientation but you'll show me around, won't you?" Victor actually _batted his eyelashes_ at him.

 _This is a just a very weird dream_ , Yuuri told himself firmly. _I got into the hot spring and fell asleep, and I'm going to wake up with pruney fingers and toes and I'll have missed dinner._

Yuuri pinched himself firmly on the stomach. Ow. Victor's eyes zoomed downward.

"Put on a little weight, I see!" he said. "No matter! We'll get you back into shape in time for your first match."

Yuuri pulled his shirt down over his gut. Quidditch. Of course—this had something to do with Quidditch.

"Are...are you going to play Quidditch here now?" Yuuri asked him.

"Of course not," Victor laughed. "That wouldn't be fair, would it? I'm here to mentor you."

"Do the teachers know?" Yuuri asked stupidly.

Victor laughed again. It wasn't a mocking laugh, he just sounded...happy to be there, strange as it was. He relaxed back into the water and brushed the hair out of his eyes. He gestured next to himself, like he thought Yuuri should just undress and get into the onsen naked with him. Yeah, not likely.

"Oh yes," he said, casually waving his hand. "I had my parents ask for special permission for me to complete my last year of school here, and I took a year off from the Skrzak too."

Yuuri's heart stopped. Victor Nikiforov, taking a year off from the St Petersburg Skrzak? To come to Mahoutokoro? To mentor _Yuuri?_

"You got all the way out here," Victor continued. "Aren't you going to have a soak?"

"I... I just remembered!" Yuuri squeaked. "I'm hungry! Dinner is coming up soon!"

"Dinner?" said Victor, eyes widening. He stood up again and Yuuri closed his eyes tightly. "I love Japanese food! Lead the way down, I can barely remember how I got up here in the first place."

As soon as Victor had dressed (thank God), Yuuri led him numbly down the steps and into the courtyard. He was so distracted he almost left his broom outside the onsen (Victor had grabbed it and said "You're going to need this eventually!"). Victor chattered the whole way back into the school about anything and everything—cooing over the weather ("It's so warm!"), the foliage ("When do I get to see the sakura?"), even the stones of the castle ("Is it really made entirely out of jade?").

The silence when they entered the shokudou was oppressive. Every eye was turned toward them. Yuuri would've been more nervous about being the center of attention, except he felt very sure that absolutely no one was actually looking at _him_.

"So," he said to Victor, as quietly as he could. "um, I... I don't know what house you're supposed to be in but I eat over here with House Tanuki so..."

"They set me up in a futon next to yours. That means I'm in your house, no? I'll just eat with you."

Icy cold dread filled Yuuri's veins—Victor had been in his room already! What if he'd seen the posters?!

Victor followed him to his usual table. Yuuri all but collapsed onto the tatami mat, his knees thudding on the ground as he sat. Victor took a spot directly next to him, their legs touching. If he was going to have to eat a meal with Victor Nikiforov's thigh pressed against him, Yuuri wasn't sure he'd make it.

Even Seung-gil's substantial eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline. Yuuko's mouth was open so wide Yuuri privately thought she might soon begin attracting flies. Once Victor was seated, the whole of the student body began whispering intently to their neighbors. The room sounded like a hive of buzzing susumebachi. Yuuri was starting to think that a fate of being stung by a killer bee might be preferable to having to pretend to keep his cool while casually dining with his idol.

Phichit spoke first. "I see you found Yuuri!" he said, beaming in Yuuri's direction. Yuuri was absolutely certain Phichit could see Yuuri's internal freakout, and was kind of loving it. "Did you enjoy the onsen?"

"Oh my God," Victor said, eyes rolling back into his head in ecstasy (Yuuri tried not to think too hard about that), "the onsen! I'm going to spend every day in that hot spring. Forget classes!"

"So it's true?" Yuuko whispered. "You've left Durmstrang then? You're really going to finish school at Mahoutokoro?"

"Why not?" said Victor, shrugging. "I've heard only good things and I love it here so far. It's not even snowing!"

"It's September," Seung-gil butted in. "Why would it be snowing?"

"It's already snowing by the first of term every year at Durmstrang," Victor said. "We wear capes with our uniforms, even inside."

Just then, the food arrived. Katsudon! He would've been a lot more excited normally, but he wasn't really able to spare any emotions at the moment for anything else.

"Oooh!" Victor said, eyes widening at the steaming bowl of pork cutlets. "What's this?"

"Katsudon!" Yuuko exclaimed. "It's Yuuri's favorite dish!"

"Well then," Victor said with a smile, "I'm sure it'll be mine too."

His eyes rolled back into his head again with his first bite and Yuuri tried to resist the urge to bang his forehead against the table.

"Oh my God," Victor groaned. "You eat this every day? No wonder you gained weight. I'm going to turn into a little piggy too if you give me katsudon all the time."

Yuuko's shrieking giggle could be heard easily throughout the entire room, but Victor didn't seem to notice. He continued to shovel down the katsudon with gusto until the bowl was empty.

"Is there more?" he asked, turning to Yuuri.

"Just, um...tap your wand against the table," Yuuri told him.

Victor pulled out his wand—a long, thin black one with intricate silver inlays—and rapped it against the table. Yuuri couldn't take his eyes off it.

"What?" Victor asked. He followed Yuuri's gaze to his wand. "Do you like it?"

He handed his wand to Yuuri.

"What kind of wood is this?" Yuuri asked him. It was heavier than it looked.

"Ebony," Victor said, leaning in close, "and Veela hair. Do you use Veela hair in your wands here?"

Yuuri shook his head—he honestly had no idea what a Veela was, but didn't want to seem dumb by asking. He handed Victor's wand back to him before he accidentally broke it or something.

"What about yours?" Victor asked, reaching over into Yuuri's pocket as though he frequently started rummaging through other people's clothing and pulling out his wand.

"It's um...willow. Dragon heartstring," Yuuri stammered.

"Dragon heartstring, hmm?" said Victor, twirling the wand in his fingers. "They favor the passionate, you know."

Yuuri prayed for the sweet embrace of death as Victor returned his wand, obviously brushing fingers with him on purpose. Victor pocketed his own wand as another steaming bowl of katsudon nestled itself into the empty bowl in front of him.

Yuuri showed Victor the way to the House Tanuki dormitories after dinner. "You're going to have to walk me here every night," Victor warned him. "I never remember these things."

Victor made a beeline from the door, through the shoin, to the sliding doors leading into the dormitory. Yuuri did the best he could to squeeze past him. He was pretty sure he did some accidental magic in his haste to rip the posters off the wall. Once he had managed to shove them all under his bed, he looked past Victor and almost giggled.

At least fifteen huge suitcases were stacked three high, forming an almost impenetrable wall between Victor and Yuuri's futons and Takeshi's. It was like they had their own private room all to themselves.

"I couldn't help myself," Victor said, gesturing to the suitcases. "I collect clothes and I couldn't decide what I'd need so...I brought everything!"

"We usually wear uniforms," Yuuri told him.

"Even on the weekends?" Victor asked, plainly horrified.

"No," said Yuuri, "but..."

"What a relief," Victor breathed, dropping his jacket to the floor and collapsing back onto his futon, stretching out like a cat. Yuuri watched, mesmerized, as his shirt rode up to his chest and exposed his abs. "I can't even be _me_ if I can't wear what I want."

Okay then.

"Where are your books?" Yuuri asked. "I can help...you know, get you ready for classes tomorrow."

"Oh!" said Victor, smacking his own forehead lightly. "I knew I forgot something!"

"You didn't bring any textbooks?" Yuuri said, trying not to let his jaw drop. He perched himself on the edge of his futon because his knees were still threatening to give out under the weight of just how unreal this all was.

"I can just share with you, right?" Victor smiled up at him, blue eyes twinkling. Yuuri was pretty sure he'd never be able to deny Victor anything if he was going to look at him like _that._

"Of course," he squeaked, face reddening.

"How about," Victor suggested, sitting up and raking his eyes up and down Yuuri's body and _not even trying to hide it_ , "we spend the rest of the evening here in the dormitory getting to know each other better?"

Yuuri stood up so fast that he could almost hear the blood rushing out of his head. He tried to take a step, tripped over Victor's jacket, and promptly fell flat on his face.

"Are you..." Victor started, but Yuuri was already on his feet again, edging slowly toward the sliding door.

"Fine!" Yuuri babbled. "I'm fine! I just...is that Yuuko calling me? I think it is!"

Yuuri slid out the door and shut it behind him, trying to catch his breath. He sped out of the shoin, past his concerned teammates who had gathered in the corner, and down the stairs leading away from the dormitories. He had just cleared the courtyard when he bumped bodily into someone and fell right onto his butt.

"Yuuri!" said Minako—she and Yuuri had long ago abandoned the pretense of titles. Relief flooded through Yuuri's body. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost?"

She reached out her arm and helped Yuuri to his feet.

"Want to come to my office?" she offered. "I've got some dead slugs that need pickling. Gotta scare those first years tomorrow."

Yuuri made a face.

"And for your trouble, how about some No-Maj mango Ramune? I brought over a case from home just so that I could bribe you into doing my bidding all year."

"Deal," Yuuri agreed immediately.

"So," Minako started once they'd reached her office, tossing Yuuri a pair of dragon hide gloves, "Victor Nikiforov, huh?"

"You have no idea," Yuuri muttered under his breath. "He says he's transferred from Durmstrang to mentor me as a Seeker."

"Wow," Minako whistled.

"He's going to be so disappointed when he realizes I'm nobody special," Yuuri said, giving voice to the fear fermenting in his gut.

"Don't be ridiculous," Minako replied, wrinkling her nose as she poured the dead slugs out onto a table. "I'm not saying he's not crazy, but he's not wasting his time either. I gotta say, I'm pretty excited—House Tanuki has that cup in the bag this year. Not that I'm taking sides, of course." Wink.

"You can't really think that," Yuuri said incredulously. "We have the same team as last year and after I screwed—"

" _You_ can't really think that you'll lose with Victor Nikiforov mentoring you," Minako interrupted. She crossed her arms and stared at him.

"Look, he may be the best in the world—" Yuuri started.

"—that's not really up for debate—"

"—but I'm still me. I freeze up. I mess up. It's what I do." Yuuri's hand slipped as he spoke and slug carcasses spilled all over the floor. He looked up at Minako and raised his eyebrows. _See?_

"Yeah, I'm not convinced," she said, pulling out her wand and sending the slugs soaring neatly into the jar on her desk. Yuuri sank down into a chair. "I've known you since you were yea high and at no time have I ever seen evidence that you were a failure."

"You must've been drunk during last year's Quidditch Cup match then," Yuuri replied.

"Okay, that _is_ up for debate," she admitted. "But what's not is you. Just because you _have_ failed doesn't mean you always will. You're too hard on yourself and I've stopped trying to convince you otherwise because it's clearly a losing battle. What I _can_ do is tell you I think you're awesome and you're worth every second of Victor's time. And also thanks for the help. Here's your Ramune." She handed him a bottle and steered him out the door. "I'm going to have a beer and then hit the hay. Good luck with Victor!"


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four: Yuuri vs. Exercise: Getting Back on Track!**

Yuuri woke from a wonderful dream of watching Victor, wearing nothing but a smile, competing in the Moscow stadium to—

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!" Victor crooned from his perch on the edge of Yuuri's futon. He brushed Yuuri's bangs out of his face. "First day of classes!"

Yuuri pulled the covers up to his chin.

"Uh...good morning, Victor," he stuttered. "Lemme just...I'm gonna get my, um..."

He slipped off the other side of his futon, as far away as possible from Victor and grabbed his school robes.

Victor stood and peeled off his pajamas as though he changed in front of Yuuri every day. Yuuri slowly turned around and hooked his hands in his pajama bottoms, trying to focus on what he was doing.

"How do I look?" Victor asked, spreading his arms and turning so that Yuuri could admire him from every angle. "Like I belong here?"

"Uh, sure," said Yuuri. He'd never seen anyone Victor's age with a robe that pink. Usually by the time students reached eleventh year, their robes were more of a rose gold—like Yuuri's. He wasn't sure if Victor knew about the color-changing robes, but he decided he wasn't going to be the one to break it to him.

"Our robes at Durmstrang are red," Victor said, fixing his hair in the mirror. "With a fur lining. My robes for the national team were red too—this is a nice change. Something a little softer."

Yuuri crammed his bag full of books, sumi and fude—he doubted Victor had the foresight to bring his own ink and brush to write with, if he hadn't even remembered to buy textbooks—before heading down to breakfast.

To Yuuri's astonishment, Victor ate his natto without complaint and even asked for seconds again. Breakfast mostly consisted of keeping quiet (with Victor shoved up against him again) while Victor fielded questions about Quidditch from Yuuri's teammates.

"I'm a better captain than I am a player," Yuuko admitted between bites. "My goal is to someday own a practice stadium. Where do you think I'd have the best luck with that?"

"Why not here in Japan?" Victor asked her. "I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to leave!"

"Did you play for a house team at Durmstrang?" Mitsumi wanted to know.

"Oh, of course!" Victor told her, eyes lighting up. "The houses are not quite so friendly with one another as they are here. I played up until last year, actually— "

A screech interrupted him at that moment as a snowy owl soared through one of the doors and landed deftly on the rim of Victor's coffee cup. Several people squealed in surprise as it flew over their heads. It dropped a large red envelope into Victor's bowl of rice.

"Oh, hello!" he said to the owl, stroking its feathers. "Thank you very much. Yuuri, is there a place for her to get something to eat?" Yuuri pointed dumbly in the direction of the Mahoutokoro Aviary. The owl regarded him judgmentally with large eyes and then took off again out the door.

Yuuri then turned his attention to the red envelope in Victor's rice. Victor picked it up carefully by one of the corners and placed it in the center of the table. There was no name—the return address simply said _Durmstrang Institute._

"Sorry about that," Victor said, brushing away the interruption. "Where were we?"

"Durmstrang house rivalry," Phichit said immediately.

"Ah yes, thank you," Victor replied. "My house was called Drekr and of course, we won the Cup five years in a row."

The envelope had begun to smoke softly at the corners.

"Um, Victor?" Yuuri whispered, pointing to the letter.

"Don't worry about it," Victor said, placing a hand on Yuuri's forearm and causing Yuuri to promptly forget how to breathe again. But even as he said it, the smoking intensified. It was starting to gather the attention of the other people at the table.

"Why is your letter smoking?" Guang Hong asked.

"Do you not have these in Japan?" Victor said. "Ah, you see..."

The letter burst open and a howl of rage filled the shokudou.

"VICTOR!" a voice boomed. The room shook. "YOU SHITHEAD, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAMN MIND? I SHOWED UP YESTERDAY WITH GAMEPLANS FOR YOU TO LOOK OVER AND YOU'D DISAPPEARED. I HAD TO FIND OUT FROM STUPID YAKOV OF ALL PEOPLE THAT YOU'D DECIDED TO DROP OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I'D HAVE FLOWN THERE MYSELF AND BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU WITH MY BAT IF I DIDN'T HAVE TO SUDDENLY LEARN HOW TO BE A SEEKER ALL BY MYSELF. IF I DON'T SEE YOU BACK AT DURMSTRANG BY NEXT WEEK, I'LL COME TO MAHOUTOKORO AND KIDNAP YOU AND DRAG YOU BACK TO DURMSTRANG MYSELF IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO!"

The echoes of the screaming voice were still reverberating in Yuuri's head as the letter tore itself to pieces and then smoldered into ashes. Every single person in the shokudou was staring at them. Yuuri turned to Victor, ready to face the tears of humiliation that he expected would be streaming down his face (there's _no_ way Yuuri wouldn't be crying after a letter like that) but Victor was smiling benignly. Yuuri's face burned from second-hand embarrassment.

"Sorry about that everyone," Victor called smoothly to the room at large. Yuuri was sure that half the people couldn't even hear him over the ringing in their ears. "Just a joke from an old friend!"

That was apparently all the explanation the student body needed. They collectively turned back to their own tables and began chattering again. Yuuri still felt like he'd been punched in the gut by a _voice_.

"Who was that?" he asked Victor.

"That would be the other Yuri," he said. "Yuri Plisetsky. He was on my team at Durmstrang in Drekr House. I was going to mention to him that I wouldn't be coming back this year, but it must have slipped my mind. He was our best Beater but I guess they're making him Seeker now. Good for him!"

Victor seemed less than concerned about the threat of having the shit beat out of him with a Beater's bat than Yuuri would've been—especially coming from this Yuri Plisetsky. Yuuri detected no trace of teasing in that voice—he was certain that Yuri was drawing up plans at this very moment to come kidnap Victor from the House Tanuki dormitories while they slept. Yuuri then began to worry that _he_ was going to get the shit beat of out of him when Yuri learned that he was the apparent reason Victor had flown off to Japan.

"Are you done eating?" Victor asked him. "I'll finish that if you're not going to."

Victor whisked Yuuri's unfinished rice out from under his nose and it was gone in three bites.

"Where to first?" he said, wiping his mouth and standing. He offered a hand to help Yuuri up.

"Um," Yuuri stammered, feeling like a princess being swept off her feet by a knight as he took Victor's hand. Victor pulled him to standing easily. "We have Herbology first. Down in the gardens. By the way, what electives did you choose? I haven't seen your schedule."

"You don't need to," Victor assured him. "I just told them to put me in all your classes."

Yuuri was really starting to wonder what he could've _possibly_ done to deserve this when Victor strolled off in the wrong direction and he had to reach out and grab his shoulder to keep him from accidentally walking into the kitchens. They made it to Herbology in one piece a few minutes later. Yuuri hoped Victor wouldn't notice how winded he was from the brisk walk out to the gardens.

"Tomorrow morning," Victor announced as they took their places around the garden fence, "you are going for a run before breakfast." He _had_ noticed, then. Fantastic.

As luck would have it, they studied a plant native to Russia that day. "They have these all over the place at home," Victor said, tickling the underside of the leaves of his plant. The flowers blushed a deep crimson. "Our front garden is full of them. A little dangerous, I guess, if you're not used to it but..." He was perfectly adept at Herbology, clearly right on grade level. Yuuri decided that Mahoutokoro's school robes just must not have adjusted to Victor yet. That's why they were still pink.

This confidence lasted through Defensive Magic and Care of Magical Creatures until just after lunch. Yuuri learned that he had been lulled into a false sense of security as to Victor's academic propensity about five minutes into Transfiguration.

"I've never heard of this spell," Victor told him, breathing on Yuuri's neck as he leaned over to share his textbook. Yuuri tried to ignore the goosebumps erupting on his skin.

"This is a review," Yuuri told him, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. "We learned this spell in eighth year."

Victor flipped idly through the pages. "I've never heard of any of these," he said casually. "Guess you're going to have to tutor me!"

By the end of their last class of the day, Yuuri felt he had a pretty good handle on Victor's education. He was tremendously talented in Defensive Magic (which was no surprise, given Durmstrang's history with illegal practices and the recent attempts to salvage their reputation), very familiar with magical plants (but only the ones found in Russia and Scandinavia), a natural handler of magical creatures, and that was about it. He had maybe a seventh-year-level understanding of Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic and Potions. Yuuri wasn't exactly sure how they were going to find time to turn Yuuri into a Quidditch prodigy while he frantically tried to catch Victor up to speed on his magical education, but Victor seemed incredibly cavalier about the whole thing.

"Don't worry about me," he said with a wave of his hand, like _that_ was going to stop Yuuri from freaking out. "I'm here to focus on you." There really was no getting through to him.

Yuuri normally started on his homework first thing after classes, but Victor insisted that they "get some fresh air" while it was still light out. As it turned out, "get some fresh air" was code for Yuuri doing a grueling No-Maj exercise routine Victor had borrowed from the St Petersburg Skrzak while Victor lolled about in the grass, drinking Yuuri's Ramune and picking flowers.

"You're doing great Yuuri!" he called from across the courtyard, now wearing the flowers he'd woven into a crown. A gaggle of girls sat feet behind him, giggling like lunatics, but Victor appeared not to have noticed them. Sweat poured down Yuuri's forehead as he counted crunches.

"Is that enough?" he finally gasped, approaching Victor and collapsing next to him in the grass. Phichit had apparently joined him at some point and was conversing animatedly with Victor.

"What?" Victor asked. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. But look, I made you something!"

Victor placed the flower crown on Yuuri's head, declared it "very pretty," and promptly went back to his conversation with Phichit while Yuuri did his best not to die of exertion.

"That was fun," Victor decided unilaterally. "We can get homework done after dinner. We're going to do this every day."

"Every day?" Yuuri echoed. "Every day until when?"

"Until this," Victor poked Yuuri's belly, "is gone and you're fast enough to catch the Snitch again."

House Kirin was in charge of dinner (no katsudon) and Victor spent most of the meal trying to figure out when the next House Tanuki dinner would be.

"If you like katsudon so much," Yuuri told him, "I can try to sign us up for dinner a few times a week. Most people just want to get in for breakfast so that House Komainu can't sign up for natto every morning." Victor's eyes lit up and he nodded vigorously.

True to his word, Victor poked Yuuri awake at the ass crack of dawn for a run, then immediately curled back up under the silk blankets he apparently brought from home and went back to sleep. Cursing the universe, Yuuri spent the forty-five minutes before breakfast sprinting around the school grounds, climbing staircases and jogging backwards. By the time he got cleaned off and back to the dormitory he felt as though he could've slept for a thousand hours and made to crawl back in bed for a quick nap, but Victor (already dressed and looking irritatingly well-rested) tossed him his robes and watched him change before they went down to the shokudou for breakfast.

No fewer than six owls brought messages for Victor that morning. He thanked each one individually and piled the letters in a stack next to his breakfast without looking at them, then surreptitiously slipped them into the garbage on the way to Charms.

Thus began three weeks of hard work that Yuuri would've gladly condensed into a montage, if his life was a movie. Quidditch practices only started three weeks into the school year as a courtesy to the teams who needed to have tryouts for new players, so the time he would normally have spent on his broom was instead devoted to Victor's god-forsaken No-Maj training routine. Getting Victor to do any amount of schoolwork was like pulling teeth—he spent all his time lounging around the school, snacking and making friends while Yuuri ran and jumped and climbed until he dropped. The letters kept coming, and Victor kept ignoring them. Twice more, the snowy owl who had visited on the first day of classes brought letters for Victor—thankfully not the screaming red envelopes—and Victor tossed out those messages as well. Whenever they were alone, Victor flirted outrageously at him as Yuuri flailed helplessly and melted with mortification.

"So," Victor said one Sunday as they sat on the shore on the opposite side of the island, "what is it you want from me?"

"What I want you to do is stop flourishing your wand so much," Yuuri said, pointing to the Charms textbook laid out in front of them. "The movement is more straightforward. It's like—"

"No," said Victor, shaking his head and putting his wand down, closing the book. "I mean, what is it you want from me?"

It still took Yuuri a second to grasp that he wasn't talking about homework, and the question really threw Yuuri off. What did Victor even _mean_ by that? It wasn't like Yuuri had asked him to come here—he just...showed up.

"I don't know," Yuuri muttered.

"What do you want me to be to you?" Victor pressed. "A mentor? A father figure? A brother?"

"No," Yuuri sulked, because none of those sounded right.

"So then your lover," Victor declared. "I'll try my best!"

"No! What? Wait...no. I don't...I just...what?" Yuuri stammered. Victor just threw his head back in laughter, tossed a stone into the ocean and suggested they head back up to the school.

That evening, Yuuko came back from an after dinner meeting waving a stack of paper in their faces.

"Quidditch practice schedule!" she trilled, tapping it with her wand and making copies of the top sheet for everybody. Victor peered at the schedule over Yuuri's shoulder.

He hummed, then grabbed Yuuri around the waist from behind. His fingers brushed over Yuuri's ribs and Yuuri tried hard not to make a sound—something told him it would be a bad idea to ever let on to Victor how ticklish he was.

"You've really slimmed down already," Victor told him. "I'm going to kind of miss your tummy, but you look cute like this too."

Yuuri looked around wildly to see if any of his friends had witnessed this bizarre exchange, but they were all engrossed in their own schedules. Victor spun Yuuri around by the waist and held his face with both hands, squishing his cheeks together.

"Does ish mean I can shtop running before breakfasht?" Yuuri managed.

"You'll be getting plenty of exercise during practice," Victor considered, "so I don't see why not."

While Yuuri silently held a party in his head over having his precious morning snooze returned to him, Victor turned to Yuuko.

"Do you have a game schedule yet?" he asked.

"Oops!" she said, leafing through her packet, "Somewhere in...here you go!"

Yuuri let out a shaky sigh of relief. First game in two weeks—Sunday, October 9th—Komainu vs. Kirin. He'd get to sit this one out. Victor seemed to catch on.

"Somehow I get the feeling that you'd be better off playing first," he said, frowning slightly and skimming the page. "But I guess more practice time can't hurt."


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five: Yuuri vs. A Cliff: Breaking Your Face for Fun!**

"Alright everyone!" Yuuko clapped her hands together, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet so hard her ponytail looked in danger of smacking her in the face. "First practice of the year! I've drawn up some new drills for the Beaters. Takeshi!"

"Yes ma'am?"

"You and Seung-gil take these." She handed over a clipboard full of moving stick-figure diagrams. Seung-gil looked at them over Takeshi's shoulder and rolled his eyes.

"Chasers!"

Guang Hong and Phichit looked at her expectantly.

"We're going to to work on the stuff we talked about over breakfast. Mitsumi!"

Mitsumi nodded in Yuuko's direction.

"Just do blocking exercises with the Auto-Quaffle for now. Did, um, did anyone get much of a chance to practice over the summer?"

The hesitant murmurs were answer enough.

"That's okay!" Yuuko said, though her smile looked a little forced and she stopped bouncing. "I mean...we can get back up to speed, right? Right. Yuuri, you're with Victor."

"Excellent," said Victor, stretching out his arms in front of him. "The first thing we're doing is going to the onsen."

"The onsen?" Yuuri repeated. What?

"To relax your muscles," Victor told him, steering him bodily out of the changing room and up the hill. "We're starting with some stretching exercises."

Yuuri took as much time as possible removing his clothes once they were safely ensconced in the onsen, hoping that by some miracle maybe lightning would strike him or a younger kid would need something and he could avoid being naked in front of Victor. It wasn't shyness—he'd soaked in there with Phichit at least a dozen times, so why was he dreading this so much? Victor was naked within seconds.

"We're not going to get in the water today," Victor told him, arms extended over his head and bending backwards. "We're just taking advantage of the steam."

Yuuri's eyes trailed down the line of Victor's body, down his chest and... nope. That way madness lies. He forced his gaze skyward as he dropped his underwear to the ground and imitated Victor's pose.

"As a Seeker, it is especially important for you to remain limber at all times," Victor told him. "Also don't forget to breathe or you'll pass out and then I won't be able to teach you anything."

Yuuri sucked in an enormous gasp of air. He hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath. Victor chuckled.

"That advice goes for everything. You can't truly enjoy a moment if you're accidentally suffocating. People forget to breathe at the most inconvenient times—when seeing something especially beautiful, when they need to focus on an important task, during lovemaking— "

Yuuri choked on nothing and let out a sputtering cough. Victor just smiled at him, then swung his arms down to touch his toes. Once he had regained his composure, Yuuri did the same.

"Am I right in thinking that when you fell into the water last year, your lungs were empty?"

Yuuri was glad he was facing his own knees so that Victor couldn't see him cringing.

"Yes," he whispered.

"Wouldn't it have been easier to get out on your own if you'd had a breath for a spell?"

"Probably," Yuuri muttered. "But maybe not. I can normally do that spell nonverbally, I just...froze."

"Yuuri," Victor said, and his voice had suddenly drawn much closer. Yuuri stood up.

"I saw you practicing when you thought no one was watching," he said.

Yuuri's face burned. The first day of term. The figure watching him from the shore. That had been Victor!

"You saw that?" Yuuri groaned, burying his face in his hands. Victor immediately reached up and pulled Yuuri's hands away from his face.

"What I saw that day was a professional Seeker," Victor told him, staring him directly in the eye. He was so close that his forehead was almost touching Yuuri's. "If you could do that during games, you'd be as famous as I am." He still hadn't let go of Yuuri's wrists.

"You think so?" Yuuri whispered.

"Of course," Victor told him, and for a split second Yuuri was convinced Victor was going to lean in and kiss him—but then Victor took a step back. "Quidditch Quarterly said they're considering naming that move after me, so if you can manage it you can't be as hopeless as you think you are. Lift up your leg behind you."

They spent so long in the steam that by the time they were finished, there was less than ten minutes left for them to actually fly.

"Next time," Victor declared. "That's enough for you today. Is it katsudon night?"

Yuuri nodded and watched from the cliff as Seung-gil sent a Bludger soaring less than three inches away from Guang Hong's nose.

"Your aim!" Yuuko called. "You're supposed to be hitting it at Takeshi!"

"Oh man," Yuuri whimpered.

"Don't worry about them," Victor breezed. "There's nothing you can do about the rest of your team. Your job is to avoid Bludgers and catch the Snitch."

"But— "

"You're doing them a disservice by worrying," Victor interrupted. "Focusing on what's happening with the rest of your team takes your attention away from what you're supposed to be doing. If your Chasers spent the whole game looking for the Snitch, how many goals do you think they'd score?"

Victor was right—of course he was, so Yuuri just nodded. Victor put an arm around Yuuri's shoulders as the Quaffle went sailing past Yuuko's outstretched arms and plummeted into the water. Yuuko's shoulders slumped visibly and she pulled out her wand to summon the ball.

"I've never even touched a Quaffle," Victor said conversationally.

"You haven't?"

"You have?"

"LOOK OUT!" Phichit shouted. A Bludger, knocked out of the pitch by Takeshi, came hurtling toward them. Victor pulled Yuuri out of the way easily and waved back at the team.

"Sorry!" Takeshi bellowed. "Call it a dodging exercise!"

"Let's move on," Victor decided, herding Yuuri back to the safety of the changing room.

Yuuri spent the following two days vacillating between dreading and eagerly anticipating the next practice, a Saturday—when he would get back on a broomstick for the first time in nearly a month. The morning came and it was natto for breakfast again (ugh) but Yuuri was so nervous he ordered a second helping anyway. Victor caught the bowl before it could reach Yuuri's place setting.

"Phichit told me you tend to binge when something's on your mind," he said, setting the bowl next to his own. "Care to share?"

"Not really," Yuuri mumbled, dropping his head to the table.

An owl soared through the room and dropped a letter on Yuuri's head. He lifted an arm and pointed automatically toward the Mahoutokoro crow nest without looking up.

"Oh!" said Victor, and then the letter was snatched up from Yuuri's hair and he heard the sound of ripping paper. Victor had yet to open a single letter he'd received during his time at Mahoutokoro, so this took Yuuri by surprise. He lifted his head.

Victor had already discarded the envelope and was scanning a letter on pink stationary. Yuuri picked up the envelope. It was addressed to Victor Nikiforov, and the i's were dotted with hearts. The return address was—

"Christophe Giacometti," Yuuri muttered. "I met him at the World Cup."

"Mm," Victor agreed, nodding vigorously but keeping his eyes trained on the letter. "You certainly did."

"What do you mean by— "

"Okay!" Victor exclaimed, folding up the letter and placing it in his pocket. "I'm just going to write him back and then we can get started."

To Yuuri's surprise (and sort of disappointment), Victor left his Kinya 2020 in their dormitory and selected an old Firebolt IV model from the school broom shed.

"I'd leave you in the dust if I was on the Kinya," he explained, mounting the school broom once they'd finished stretching (clothed, this time). Victor kicked off, hovering as Yuuri took out his Suzume and prepared to get on. "But don't worry. I'll give you another chance on it anytime you like." He winked.

Before Yuuri could ask, Victor had sped off toward the middle of the pitch. Yuuri planted a foot squarely on either side of his broomstick and took a deep breath. Don't forget to breathe, said Victor's voice in his head.

Yuuri kicked off hard from the ground and felt the wind catch the sleeves of his shirt, blowing the cloth on his back out behind him like a balloon. He rocketed up toward the sun to bask in the glow for a moment, and then looped back down to meet Victor. He smiled to himself. It was just like last time—he forgot how much he loved flying every time he hit the ground.

Victor was lounging on his broomstick in a position Yuuri wouldn't have dared to imitate (he looked terrifyingly close to falling fifty feet into the ocean) with his hand resting on his chin.

"Done playing around?" Victor asked. Yuuri nodded.

"Okay this might be a little unconventional but I'm going to start by teaching you a move I only just perfected at the end of last season," Victor said. He took off at top speed toward the cliff, and at the very last moment—long after Yuuri was certain he was going to crash into it—he pulled up on the handle and sailed upward, looped around in the air, and landed right where he'd started in front of Yuuri. And then he gestured toward the cliff, like he expected Yuuri to do that. Yuuri thought that sounded a little more than "unconventional." Everything Victor did was unconventional—this was just insane.

"It's called the Wronski Feint," Victor said. "But I've modified it for use against a vertical barrier, like the stands, rather than the ground."

"I know," Yuuri told him. "You did that last year in the match against Novosibirsk. Georgi Popovich crashed into a billboard and spent three days in the hospital. They had to for— "

Yuuri slapped a hand over his own mouth. Not really necessary to let Victor know he'd been stalking him like a total creep since the beginning of his career. But Victor either didn't notice or care because he just nodded and gestured again toward the cliff.

Yuuri started with a bit more force than he meant to. He thought Victor had yelled something after him, and he really hoped it wasn't important, because there was no way he could hear anything over the roar of the wind in his ears. Soon there was nothing but the cliff in his vision. He imagined a rival Seeker following close behind him, thinking he had seen the Snitch.

It only occurred to him a few yards from the cliff wall that he hadn't decided in which direction he was planning to go. In a futile attempt to turn both up and down, Yuuri slowed down, only to smash headfirst into the cliff. Dazed and seeing spots, he spun slowly in half-hearted circles lower and lower.

"Well, I suppose turning is technically essential to the technique, but don't worry," Victor assured him as Yuuri rubbed the goose egg on his forehead. "You'll get the hang of it soon." Yuuri privately thought there was little chance he would learn to do a modified Wronski Feint without almost killing himself even if he lived to be a hundred and fifty, but there was no use arguing with Victor about that. He just sighed.

However, to his own astonishment, Yuuri was able to complete the motions during the next practice without smashing into the cliff once. He still wasn't convinced he'd be able to catch the Snitch during the process, and would probably fall to pieces with a crowd watching him try, but at least he didn't knock himself out.

"Better," Victor would say, "but let me show you one more time."

And then he would execute the move smoothly and perfectly on the Firebolt. Yuuri continually wondered how this was possible—it was as if the old broom flew faster with Victor on it, as though it liked him. Or maybe he was just so damn talented that he could've done it on literally anything. Yuuri kept half expecting Victor to jump off and start flying broom-less.

By the time the weekend of the first match rolled around, they still hadn't actually brought out a Snitch to practice with, but Yuuri was feeling more confident about his flying than he ever had. Under Victor's guidance, his turns were sharper, his movements surer. Tiny changes in his posture had him flying faster than ever.

The whole school was buzzing about Kirin versus Komainu in the week preceding the match, and Yuuri felt himself getting caught up in the excitement. It seemed like such a long time ago that he'd looked forward to a school game—he'd had to play both of the last games the previous year—and he found himself discussing team strategy with Victor during meals and whenever they weren't studying (Yuuri insisted they spend at least a couple of hours a day trying desperately to catch Victor up, regardless of how indifferent he seemed to Charms and Transfiguration and all the things that he actually needed to survive in the wizarding world other than Quidditch).

"Kirin had all-new brooms last year. Hayashis." Yuuri told him over a katsudon breakfast on Saturday. "It was a donation from Mr. Hayashi himself, he was in House Kirin when he went here."

Victor looked thoroughly unimpressed. "You should know by now that a broom is only as good as its rider," was his reply.

"I guess it didn't make much difference in the end," Yuuri admitted. "They came in third. And it's not like those are top-of-the-line brooms anyway. But Komainu is a different story—their strategy is usually defensive. Last year's Keeper graduated and their new Keeper is a ninth year and he's supposed to be— "

"VICTOR!"

A familiar roar filled the shokudou, quite possibly the whole school, and Yuuri whirled around to face the direction from whence it came. Stomping footsteps were approaching from the east and Yuuri waited with baited breath as they grew louder as a shadow appeared in a doorway.

The person attached to the voice was a lot smaller—both horizontally and vertically—than Yuuri had been anticipating. He couldn't have possibly been older than fourteen. He wore fur-lined red robes that Yuuri immediately recognized as a Durmstrang uniform. He was lugging a tiger-striped trunk and an obviously expensive broomstick. His mop of blond hair cast shadows over his face, making it look as though the skin around his eyes had blackened with rage.

"Privyet!" Victor greeted him from his spot next to Yuuri, waving at the boy in the doorway, whom Yuuri had now surmised could only be Yuri Plisetsky. Actual steam rose from underneath his hair.

"There you are!" Yuri declared, drawing his wand out of his robes and pointing it straight at Victor, oblivious to the whole of the Mahoutokoro student body staring at him in horror.

"Come sit with us," Victor called. "It's katsudon for breakfast. You'll love it!"

"I'm not here to eat breakfast with you," Yuri snarled. "I'm here to shove some sense into your thick head and haul your ass back to Durmstrang! Get up!"

Yuuri would've been seriously concerned that the situation was about to turn violent, except that Victor seemed so relaxed. Everyone else seemed to be taking their cues from him as well. People slowly took their hands away from their mouths and began eating again, all eyes still glued to the scene.

"Really?" Victor said, furrowing his brow in confusion. "Oh, let me guess. I forgot to do something I promised you I'd do. You know how that happens to me sometimes."

Yuri's growl was probably audible on neighboring islands. Just then, a plate of food attempted to soar through the doorway behind him, hitting him in the back of the head and knocking him flat on his face. The growling intensified.

"Well you clearly can't stand in the doorway forever," Victor reasoned. "Come have some breakfast and we'll talk about it."

Yuuri had never seen anyone sit down so angrily. It was like the floor shook with Yuri's fury. Victor tapped his wand to the table and a fresh bowl of katsudon sailed into the room.

"Eat up!" He smiled, plopping the bowl in front of Yuri. Yuri fumed for a second before picking up his chopsticks.

Yuuri had so many questions, like all the questions, so he decided to start with the most obvious one.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

Yuri raked his eyes judgmentally over Yuuri's face. It couldn't have been plainer that he was unimpressed.

"As far as you're concerned I walked here, loser," he spat. Then he took a bite of the katsudon and let out an involuntary hum of satisfaction, which he quickly stifled.

"Good, no?" Victor smirked. Yuri gave him a nasty glare, but nodded. He couldn't have replied verbally because his mouth was absolutely stuffed with food.

"Is Makkachin being a good boy?" Victor asked him, setting his elbow on the table and placing his chin in his hand. Yuri swallowed hard.

"Makkachin?" he raged incredulously. "You haven't seen Drekr House since June and you're asking about Makkachin?"

"He's my dog, I miss him," Victor replied. "I'm sure you're all taking good care of him though. How is Potya?"

Yuri hesitated. "I have pictures," he mumbled, reaching into his robes and pulling out a stack of photographs, all featuring the same cat. He spread them out between himself and Victor.

"Very nice," Victor told him. As soon as Yuri had reached the bottom of the bowl, he seemed to remember that he was not here to eat and look at pictures of cats. He snatched the photographs up and shoved them back in his robes.

"You promised me," he emphasized, "that if you won the World Cup you'd train me to be a Seeker."

"I did?"

"Yes!" Yuri threw his hands into the air in frustration. "After we won the House Cup last year and you told me they'd picked you for the Russian national team you said you'd train me during next term. And then you disappear to the middle of nowhere and don't answer any of my letters!"

Yuuri wasn't sure he'd call Japan "the middle of nowhere" but Yuri was clearly not reasonable, so he decided not to argue.

"Sorry about that," Victor shrugged. "I'm taking a year off from the nationals and the Skrzak."

"I can see that," Yuri grumbled. "What are you even doing here? Not that I care."

"Oh!" Victor smacked his forehead. "How silly of me, I forgot to introduce you! Yuri Plisetsky, meet Yuuri Katsuki. I'm finishing school here so I can train Yuuri as a Seeker."

Whatever reasoning Yuri had been expecting for Victor's disappearance, that clearly wasn't it. He looked surprised, but still angry. Mostly angry. The surprise evaporated from his face pretty quickly.

"Fine," he spat, narrowing his eyes at Yuuri and lowering his voice dangerously. "Tell you what, fatso. I challenge you to a midnight game of Catch the Snitch. Winner gets trained by Victor."

"I love Catch the Snitch!" Victor cried, clapping his hands together. "This sounds like fun!"

"If I win," Yuri continued, "you have come back to Durmstrang with me."

"Deal," Victor nodded. Just like that. Goodbye, Victor. Yuuri supposed it was only fair—he'd promised to train both of them and there was no way to do that now without a contest. He suddenly felt like someone was trying to scoop his insides out with a spoon.

Yuri's eyes snapped back to Yuuri.

"Tomorrow night," he challenged. "I'm tired and it was a bitch getting here so I need to rest."

Yuri started to leave, dragging his broomstick and trunk with him

"Wait Yurio!" Victor called. "You have to try the— "

Yuri stopped in his tracks. "Yurio?" he growled dangerously. "You'd better not be talking to me."

"Of course I am," Victor told him, "I decided two Yuris would get confusing, so you're Yurio."

"But you've known me longer than him," Yuri protested. "Why don't you give him a stupid nickname?"

"You're a guest in his school," Victor reminded him. "That's why."

There really was no arguing with him when he made up his mind, and the newly-christened Yurio seemed to know it.

"Fine," he spat. "But if you're calling me something ridiculous, I'm going to give you a nickname too." Yurio pointed viciously at Yuuri. "How about Katsudon? I saw you stuffing your face just now, it was disgusting."

Yuuri thought it was probably wise not to point out that Yurio had eaten just as much as he had, and a lot faster, so he kept his mouth shut.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six: Yuuri vs. The Russian Punk: Babysitting While Losing Your Mind**

As soon as Yurio had left the room, the logistics of what he had just agreed to hit Yuuri in the face like a bullet train.

First of all, midnight was _way_ past curfew. This meant that he and Victor (and maybe Yurio—Yuuri still wasn't sure where he was planning on staying or if the teachers had realized he was there) would have to sneak out of bed, steal a school Snitch and play a secret game of Catch the Snitch in the pitch dark over the ocean in who knows what weather. It wasn't just against the rules; it was downright _dangerous_.

"Nothing's going to happen to you!" Victor assured him when he voiced these problems, later in the privacy of their dormitory. "I'll be watching the whole time." Like Victor had control over whether Yuuri would get expelled for stealing from the school. Or whether there'd be a thunderstorm that knocked both him and Yurio off course, drowning them in the sea.

"This is such a bad idea," Yuuri wailed, wringing his hands in terror. "Oh and also, I'm going to lose and you're going to go back to Durmstrang." His stomach twisted at the thought—Victor had only been at Mahoutokoro a month, and it struck him suddenly how lonely he'd be if Victor were to leave. It was hard to believe how accustomed he'd grown to Victor's companionship over such a short time.

There was a knock on the door and Takeshi's voice said, "Hey guys? Sorry to bother you, but the angry Russian kid from breakfast is outside the shoin demanding to see Victor."

"Coming," Yuuri called back. He had been sort of wondering where Yurio had wandered off to—they hadn't seen him since breakfast and it was almost time for lunch.

"Did you have a nice nap?" Victor asked Yurio as soon as they saw him. It couldn't have been more obvious that he'd fallen asleep, wherever he'd been. His eyes were puffy and his hair was all over the place.

"I went to _rest_ in the hot spring," he grumbled. "I didn't _fall asleep_. Then somebody tried to come in there while I was naked and I had to yell at them. Who tries to take a bath with other people?"

"How did you get into the onsen in the first place?" Yuuri asked him. "There's a password for— "

"I argued with that stupid frog until it let me in," he interrupted. "Now I need food. When is lunch?"

At lunch, during which Yurio (rather hypocritically, Yuuri felt) ate three servings of nabe, Victor casually mentioned what he and Yuuri had been up to while Yurio was asleep in the onsen.

"You _what?_ " Yurio shouted.

"I sent a message to Yakov," Victor continued. "I wanted to let him know you got here safely. Was I not supposed to do that?"

"You idiot! Now he's going to know I'm here!"

Yuuri was under the deep suspicion that Yakov, whoever that was, already knew Yurio was missing. He just didn't strike Yuuri as the kind of person whose absence would go unnoticed. It was probably very quiet around Durmstrang today.

"Wait," Yuuri said. Something had just occurred to him. "How did you get into the school in the first place? The komainu are supposed to— "

"Your groundskeeper found me outside," Yurio said ( _probably because you were yelling,_ Yuuri added silently). "He let me in after checking my wand and told me to go wait in the headmaster's office so that Yakov could come get me." The fact that he _didn't_ do that remained unsaid, but understood.

"But that's not the point," Yurio continued. "Now I'm going to have to deal with Yakov because of you."

"Did you really think no one was going to notice you were gone?" Yuuri asked before he could stop himself.

"My plan would've been perfect," he said, glaring at Victor. "I tried to take the Floo Network here but this stupid school doesn't have fireplaces. I got as far as Iwo Jima and had to fly the rest of the way here on my broom. It took _all night_."

"How are you planning on getting back?" Yuuri asked. Was he the only person here who ever thought _anything_ through? Yurio just glared at him, which wasn't an answer. Yuuri hypothesized that maybe he'd been hoping Victor would side-along Apparate with him, although he didn't want to be the one to break it to Yurio that Apparation from Japan to Scandinavia wasn't within the realm of possibility.

They spent the rest of the afternoon showing Yurio around Mahoutokoro. He declared every single thing that Victor gushed over "boring" or "pointless" or "stupid," then told them he was sick of talking to them and stomped off to the beach by himself. He did, however, reappear right before dinner and proceeded to eat several helpings of everything within sight.

Bedtime was interesting because Yuuri had become very accustomed to sharing a room with Victor practically exclusively (the wall of suitcases effectively blocked them from Takeshi entirely) and Yurio just sort of barreled his way in and crashed on Victor's futon without asking. Victor looked at Yuuri and shrugged.

"Looks like it's going to be a sleepover for us then," Victor suggested, raising his eyebrows and summoning a second set of silk blankets from one of his many suitcases. The sheets tucked themselves neatly over Yuuri's futon, while Victor pulled on his pajamas and settled into bed.

"So," he asked Yuuri, "big spoon or little spoon?"

"Um," Yuuri stuttered. Yuuri had not anticipated having to answer that question, nor had he even once pondered which he would prefer.

"Get into bed, we'll try both and see which one feels right," Victor declared. Yuuri first contemplated jumping out the window, decided against it, then got into bed.

When Yuuri awoke the next morning, warm and comfortable in Victor's arms, he supposed he had his answer. _Maybe I could just pretend to be asleep for a little longer,_ he thought, _if I just..._

"Katsudon!" came a piercing voice to the side of his bed. "Do you have toilets in the dormitories here or are you too special for fireplaces _and_ bathrooms?"

Never mind. Yurio's voice brought with it the looming reminder (and subsequent anxiety) of tonight's illicit game of Catch the Snitch. At least he'd gotten a good night's sleep. If he'd been on his own, he would probably have stayed up tossing and turning until morning.

After breakfast, the whole of Mahoutokoro made its way down to the Quidditch pitch. Yuuri kept his eyes on Victor because it was always fun watching someone's reaction when they saw the stands appear for the first time.

The teachers stood in a row and raised their wands. A crash came from below as a fountain of lava shot up all around the pitch, a hundred feet into the air, and just when it looked like gravity would cause it to go crashing back into the sea, it instantly solidified, utterly rigid, into an obelisk of obsidian complete with hundreds of perfectly even benches and staircases leading up them.

Victor looked as though his jaw might hit the sand at any moment. Even Yurio's mouth was open, eyes wide with astonishment. Yuuri remembered the first time he'd seen it happen—he'd had to lean onto Yuuko's arm for support.

Yuuri had heard that at other schools, only students and teachers came to see matches. At Mahoutokoro, parents who lived in Iwo Jima or Okinawa often came to support their children. Former students who happened to be in the area sometimes stopped by to watch. Day students and their parents made an outing of it. It wasn't unusual for unfamiliar people to show up.

What _was_ unusual was for an enormous ship to emerge from the ocean and dock itself next to the stadium.

"Uh oh," Yurio mumbled as the ship took to shore.

The deck lowered and a large, balding, angry man in deep red robes came stomping down into the sand.

"YURI PLISETSKY," he bellowed, catching sight of Yurio. Yuuri slid to the side and behind Victor, trying to stay out of the line of fire.

"Yakov!" Victor cried, rushing forward to embrace the red-faced man. He backed up in astonishment but Victor managed to get his arms around him nonetheless. "So good to see you again!"

"You'd see plenty of me if you'd stayed at Durmstrang," Yakov replied, stiff as a board. When Victor finally let go, he marched up to Yurio. "You're going to have detention for the _rest of your life,"_ he shouted. "What were you thinking?'

"He came to see me!" Victor interrupted. "We're about to watch a game, care to join?"

Yakov noticed the gaping faces of hundreds of students and adults.

"I'll deal with you later," he snarled furiously at Yurio, walking toward the staircases leading into the stands and muttering about, "No-Majs in Iwo Jima reporting a screaming Russian teenager falling out of their fireplace...the International Statute of Secrecy...Durmstrang's reputation..."

Victor, Yurio and Yakov all followed Yuuri to a spot toward the middle of the stands. Phichit sat on one side of Yuuri and Victor sat on the other, until Yurio elbowed his way in between them, plopped onto the bench and slouched down, arms folded across his chest. Yakov awkwardly sat on the other side of Victor. He had evidently been hoping to spend the match reaming Yurio out for his little stunt, but instead took the opportunity to try and convince Victor he'd made a terrible mistake.

"...can always come back," he was saying when Yuuri tuned into the conversation. "The Skrzak wrote me and said they can give you until the end of the month to change your mind— "

"You should visit us here more often!" Victor said over him. "Yuuri's going to be playing in the match next month, you and Yurio can come to that one too. It would be fun to bring Emil..."

On his other side, Yuuko, Phichit and Guang Hong were discussing Quidditch tactics.

"The Kirin Chasers have the advantage when it comes to passing," Yuuko was saying.

"But not when it comes to actually scoring," Takeshi piped in. "Murakami was a beast of a Keeper. I'd say he should've been a Beater if their Beaters weren't so good already. Wonder if their new guy's got what it takes."

"If only the Komainu Chasers were more unified," Guang Hong added. "They've just never been a cohesive team."

"Komainu has always had such a heavy emphasis on defense," Phichit said. "I guess the real x-factor of this game is going to be the new Keeper. Has anyone seen— "

The rest of Phichit's sentence was drowned out by the twin seventh-year commentators.

"Ohayo, Mahoutokoro! My name is Ruika Ikuma—

"—and I'm Emiko Ikuma— "

"—and we present to you our first Quidditch match of the year, Kirin versus Komainu!"

Applause from the crowd. The House Kirin Quidditch team flew into the pitch wearing their jasper-colored robes.

"From House Kirin," said Emiko, "most of their players graduated last year. I was sorry to see them leave even though they came in third— "

"—but Captain Arvin Cantre put together a lineup of newcomers this year including Chasers In-Jung Seong, Apinya Babpiboon, and Umi Tamura. Noriaki Noguchi will be smashing Bludgers alongside Cantre, with Ai Sekiguchi defending the goalposts and Duong Nguyen hunting down the Snitch!"

"—Duong Nguyen is my partner in Potions," Emiko added importantly.

"And from our reigning champion, House Komainu," Ruika continued, "We have returning Chasers Danilo Legaspi, Eiji Hamasaki and Hideo Fujiwara with our good old brother-sister duo Xing and Fen Chiu swinging their Beater's bats. Last but hopefully not least, Captain and Seeker Koji Ohashi has chosen a new Keeper this year to replace Hideki Murakami. Introducing...Otabek Altin!"

Next to Yuuri, Yurio shifted in his seat as Otabek Altin flew directly up to guard the goalposts without acknowledging the crowd, jade robes swirling as he turned to face the pitch.

"Hideki Murakami signed as a reserve with the Toyohashi Tengu, didn't he?" Emiko asked, though it was unclear whether she was speaking to Ruika or the audience at large. Ruika grabbed the megaphone back.

"Actually he took a job at the Department of Magical Games and Sports at the Ministry," she said, talking very fast—as though she was trying to get the sentence over with.

"That's too bad," Emiko cut in. "I know he wanted to play professionally, but I guess— "

"The Snitch has been released!" Ruika spoke over her. "The Quaffle is in the air and the game begins!"

All six Chasers collided into a jasper-and-jade mob, bumping unceremoniously into opponents and teammates alike. Yuuri peeked over Yurio to get a look at Victor's face—after seeing the Russian and New Zealand Chasers during the World Cup, he was more than a little embarrassed that this was going to be Victor's first exposure to Mahoutokoro Quidditch. Victor, however, was staring straight at the center of the pitch in concentration. Yuuri tore his gaze away from Victor and focused back on the game, or at least as well as he could while half-listening to Yurio's grumbling.

"Garbage Chasers," he was mumbling. "No excuse...wish I had my bat...could beat some sense into these people..."

"And it seems that Hamasaki of Komainu has emerged with the Quaffle," Ruika said. "He passes to Legaspi, who streaks up the pitch and—is hit by a Bludger from Cantre. The Quaffle is dropped, and it looks like Babpiboon has it. Nice catch there, narrowly missing the waves—"

"—which are really high for this time of year. We've had pretty good weather so far, so maybe a storm is coming?" Emiko ended her comment looking at the sky. Ruika wrested the megaphone from her after a few seconds silent struggle.

"And we're back to the match, where the Quaffle has changed hands a few times, with neither team getting very far down the pitch. The Beaters on both teams are keeping all of the players busy. The Chiu siblings in particular are—"

"Shouldn't they have some kind of name for their duo?" Emiko interrupted. "I think it would be cool if we started giving people nicknames or—"

"Who let this girl near the megaphone?" Yurio muttered under his breath.

"It looks like Tamura has broken through the blockade of Komainu Chasers at last. She shoots!"

Tamura shot for the left goalpost while faking a center shot. But it seemed like Komainu's new Keeper had seen through the ruse, as he glided almost lazily to the left, and punted it hard half the length of the pitch. Legaspi, who was in the rear, sped up and put it through the center Kirin hoop before Keeper Sekiguchi had time to react.

"Komainu scores, 10-0 to Komainu!"

As the match wore on, with the Chasers playing what appeared to be a feeble game of keep-away in the middle of the pitch, Yuuri focused on Otabek Altin. He played defense like no one Yuuri had ever seen. Instead of drifting from the left to right hoops with the flow of the match, he stayed center, almost still. Even on the rare occasion that one of the Kirin Chasers made it to the goalposts, Otabek always seemed to know which goal they were aiming for before they'd even decided themselves. He made every single save look effortless, and relied more on his feet than his hands.

"...who told a really funny joke during Charms the other day about a unicorn and a— "

"—so, with Komainu in the lead 40-0 and still no sign of the Snitch... But wait, there they go!"

The crowd all turned their heads as one to stare at the Seekers, who were diving after a glint of gold. Yuuri saw that the Komainu Seeker, Ohashi, had a considerable, yet quickly diminishing lead on Nguyen. Yuuri's stomach lurched as Ohashi looked backward at Nguyen and began to weave back and forth on his broomstick. He remembered it so vividly—it was like he could see it again through Nguyen's eyes, the tail of Ohashi's broom sweeping back and forth in the air...

Sure enough, it worked. Nguyen slowed, and whirled around, looking for the Snitch, which Yuuri saw hovering by the opposite goalpost.

The match began to slow. The Chasers on both teams seemed visibly tired and frustrated—Komainu because they couldn't seem to coordinate who was supposed to be where, and Kirin because they couldn't get anything past Otabek. The Beaters on both teams pummeled the midfield, adding injury to incompetence.

"I hope one of those Beaters knocks someone out," Yurio said. "Anything to make this game a little more interesting."

"Seong is moving swiftly down the pitch, ducks a hard-hit Bludger from Chiu F, and shoots! Sc—wait, no! Saved by Altin yet again!" Ruika shouted.

The crowd cheered wildly. The Quaffle took an unexpected dip below Otabek, who spun off of his broom, and, hanging under the broom with one hand, kicked the Quaffle with the speed of a Bludger almost the entire length of the pitch. Yuuri noticed that Yurio had gone completely silent and was leaned all the way forward in his seat—he looked as though he might fall into the next row if he strained his neck any further.

And then it was over. Ohashi had used the distraction of Otabek's save to dart after the Snitch, which he had grabbed practically under Nguyen's nose.

"Wait, was that it?" Emiko asked.

"It's all over," Ruika confirmed. "190-0 to Komainu!"

Yuuri expected to feel better after. After watching the Chasers fumble around in the center of the pitch—even at their most out-of-practice, Tanuki's Chasers weren't that inept—Yuuri should've been relaxed, maybe even looking forward to the match. But he couldn't shake the vision of Ohashi weaving in front of Nguyen...

"That was wonderful!" Victor called, smiling at Yuuri over the top of Yurio's head. Was he joking?

"Are you insane?" Yurio snapped. "I've touched a Quaffle twice in my life and I would've been better than three of those Chasers combined."

"But could you have scored against that new Komainu Keeper?" Yuuko piped up from the other side of Yuuri. Yurio fell silent.

"Oh man," Guang Hong said. He was still staring at the goalposts. Otabek had left the pitch, but Guang Hong was gazing in terror as though he could still see his ghost.

"We'll just have to train extra hard before our match with Komainu," Yuuko reassured him. "And don't worry—we're playing Suzaku first. They came in fourth last year!"

After everyone was safely back on the cliff, Yuuri and Victor watched the obsidian stands sink back into the ocean. The waves washed between the goalposts again as though they'd never been there at all. Which left Yuuri back where he was last night—worrying about Catch the Snitch. As though Yurio could hear his thoughts, he narrowed his eyes at Yuuri, pointed at the sky and stamped his foot on the ground. Yuuri got the message. Tonight. Right here.

Yurio spent the rest of the morning and the entire afternoon aboard the docked Durmstrang ship, with the exception of lunch, which he ate with House Tanuki again. He complained nonstop about the match through his chewing and expressed his desire to get back to Durmstrang with Victor as quickly as possible.

Yuuri had begun to feel that he was starting to get a pretty good sense of what Yurio was all about when he noticed that Yurio had spent most of the meal glancing at the House Komainu section of the shokudou.

"Who are you staring at?" Victor eventually asked him with interest.

"No one. Nothing," Yurio snapped. "Why were you watching me, creep?"

Victor stifled a giggle.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven: Yuuri vs. Yuri! The Horror! Showdown at Midnight!**

Yuuri tried to savor every moment of what was definitely going to be his last afternoon with Victor, but the hours slipped through his hands like smoke. A lump formed in his throat every time he looked at Victor and his brain was flooded with thoughts of all the things he'd miss about him. For his part, Victor continued to behave as though they had all the time in the world. He suggested going down to the beach, then a picnic, then a dip in the onsen, but Yuuri didn't feel like doing any of those things.

How could he tell Victor he just wanted to sit on the bed with him and catalog every inch of his face so that he'd never forget the time when they were so close? During dinner, _the last meal Victor and I will ever eat together_ , he thought, Yuuri couldn't even bring himself to speak. He was worried that if he said anything at all he'd start crying, so he occupied himself with two bowls of miso, udon and mabudofu, and shook his head at Victor's questions.

"Are you nervous about the game?" _No._

"What do you want to do?" _Nothing._

"Yuuri, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong." Yuuri just stared at his plate until the blurry tears in front of his eyes subsided.

He knew he was ruining everything even at the time, but he felt like he'd fallen into a spiral of despair and couldn't claw his way out. And then, before he knew it, they had snuck out of the House Tanuki dormitories and tiptoed through the halls toward the courtyard. With a stolen Snitch. Yuuri was so out of it he didn't even remember taking the Snitch out of the Quidditch supply cupboard, but he must have because there it was, glinting menacingly in Victor's gloved hand.

As they reached the doorway, a shadow appeared around the corner leading to their stretch of hallway and Yuuri's heart dropped into his feet. His mind chose that precise moment to go completely blank—but even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered. There was no time to plan and nowhere to hide, so Yuuri did the only thing he could think to do and threw himself prostrate on the floor, kneeling with his arms stretched out in front of him in a dougeiza position.

"I'm sorry!" he wailed to whoever was about to catch them out of bed with a stolen Snitch in the middle of the night. This was it. When he went back to his dormitory to pack his bags for Hasetsu, his robes would be white—the traditional symbol of his disgrace. He would be expelled. They'd snap his wand in half. He'd have to go back to the No-Maj world and...and do what? He suddenly realized he had had only magical education past elementary school. What kind university was going to accept a seventeen-year-old who finished second grade and then apparently dropped off the face of the earth for eleven years? Oh God. His eyes flooded with tears. The footsteps came closer.

"I almost don't want to ask," came Minako's voice, "but what are you boys doing out here? If you just want some alone time I can recommend a good silencing— "

"No!" Yuuri blurted. "We...we were just— "

"Professor—" Victor started.

"Please, call me Minako," she said. "Yuuri always does, and since you're so inseparable these days, I guess you might as well."

"Minako, forgive me. We were just going out for a midnight game of Catch the Snitch," Victor just straight up told her. "Want to join? The more the merrier!"

"Sure," she said. "Couldn't sleep. Might as well have some entertainment. Yuuri, what are you doing down there?"

Yuuri stood up, sniffling as quietly as he could, and shuffled behind Victor. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve as inconspicuously as possible.

"Did you really think I was going to tell on you? You've never broken a rule in your life—if this is your one rebellion, far be it from me to stop you. I got up to so much worse when I was your age. One time, I was out until dawn with—and mind, you this was a school night—with...never mind. Doesn't matter. Lead the way."

Hardly daring to believe his luck, Yuuri followed Victor out into the moonlit courtyard and toward the cliff side.

"So—" Minako said, "—and I mean this in the best possible way—not that you're not great Yuuri, but aren't you worried that Victor is a little out of your league?

 _Am I ever_ , Yuuri thought.

"I mean, Quidditch-talent-wise." she clarified. "Seems like it might be a pretty uneven match."

"Oh no," Victor laughed. "I'm not competing. This is Yuuri versus Yurio: The Midnight Showdown!"

"Yurio," Minako repeated. "Is that the little Russian punk who's been lurking around school shouting at people all weekend?"

"There you are!" Yurio barked from across the cliff. If Yuuri hadn't been so anxious, he might have laughed at Yurio's pajamas (which were covered in pictures of cats), but as it was he just stood there and tried not to tremble too visibly.

"Who is this?" Yurio jutted his chin out at Minako.

"I'm Professor Okukawa," she said, stepping forward. "I'm Yuuri's sponsor."

Wait, what? Yuuri would be the first to admit he wasn't in the best headspace tonight, but he was pretty sure he'd remember agreeing to something like that. Still, Minako was doing him the biggest favor of his life by not immediately marching him to the headmaster for expulsion, so he wasn't inclined to argue. She could've told Yurio she was his mother and he would've just smiled and nodded along.

"You didn't tell me we were having sponsors," Yurio yelled at Victor, then seemed to instantly change his mind. "But I don't care because I'm going to win in five seconds and then it won't matter."

"What are the stakes?" Minako asked Victor.

"Victor trains the winner," Yurio answered for him. "Which means he's coming back to Durmstrang with me."

Yurio mounted his broomstick. "Let's get this over with," he snapped.

"Mm," Minako hummed, staring piercingly at Yuuri, like she suddenly knew how much this was eating at him. She didn't say anything else.

Victor stood at the edge of the cliff and released the Snitch into the night. It sped off and was swallowed by blackness.

"Take your marks," he said, clasping his hands in front of him and standing behind and between Yuuri and Yurio. Yuuri looked back at him because this was his last chance to gaze stupidly into Victor's eyes before he left Japan forever. Victor caught his eye, then gave him the same wink he'd given him at the World Cup.

In a moment, Yuuri had strode the meter between himself and Victor and thrown his arms around him, because he might not ever get the chance again.

"Don't take your eyes off me," he whispered into Victor's ear.

"I won't."

"Ugh." Yuuri could almost hear Yurio rolling his eyes.

Victor hugged Yuuri back and Yuuri forced himself to let go because he felt like if he didn't now, he might never.

That look on Victor's face when he pulled back filled Yuuri with...not confidence, exactly, but determination. _I'm going to catch this damn Snitch_ , he thought as he re-mounted his broom. He tore his gaze away from Victor and stared out at the pitch, giving his eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness.

"Take your marks."

Yuuri gripped the handle of his broom so tightly he felt splinters.

"Go!"

Yuuri kicked off hard from the ground and for a moment, all he could see was stars. He was just starting to feel the wonderful sensation that was flight, when he was forced to a sudden stop. Yurio had swerved right in front of him, and Yuuri had to slow and duck to avoid crashing into him. He could hear Yurio snicker just above him, before he shot off in the opposite direction.

As the minutes wore on, Yuuri realized something important. Yurio had an advantage. He was small and slim, petite even for his age and he was three years younger than Yuuri. Standing next to him, Yuuri had felt like a troll. Yurio was undoubtedly faster than him by far—if Yurio found the Snitch first, there was no question he would be first to reach it.

However, Yurio was not a Seeker. He should've been a natural Seeker, with that build, but he was just too aggressive. He would dart in one direction with the speed of a bullet, only to change course suddenly and zoom off in another. It was as if he was trying to make the Snitch to appear out of sheer force of will. _Forget Beater,_ Yuuri thought, _Yurio is a Bludger._

Yuuri found a nice spot high above the pitch and Yurio. At first he scanned the pitch, heart pounding as he peered into the darkness. After half a minute, however, Yuuri realized that the midnight landscape was perfect for finding the Snitch. Nothing to focus on in particular, no distractions, apart from a blond blur below that was the Yurio bullet ricocheting back and forth across the pitch.

He embraced that sense of that solitude. Nothing that had happened in the past mattered in this moment. There was a winged ball of gold somewhere in the blackness, and he, Yuuri, was going to find it first.

And there it was. A glint far below—a golden light bouncing on the waves. His heart started to race again, not from nerves, but from excitement. There was one obstacle, one fast and angry obstacle, between him and the Snitch.

Yuuri slowly descended, not directly at the Snitch still clinging to the sea, but attempting to look as though he was floating in an aimless direction. Yurio seemed not to have noticed—he was still either trying to disperse a cloud formation or attempting to break the sound barrier. Yuuri was about 20 meters away when Yurio realized the trick.

Yurio shot, not at the Snitch, but straight at Yuuri, and maybe it was just errant fog, but it almost looked as if he was gushing billows of steam in his wake out of anger. That was when Yuuri realized Yurio's strategy: he had never really expected to find the Snitch first, but he sure as hell was going to knock Yuuri off his broom and into the water if he had the chance and an excuse. _Fine then. Have it your way_. Yuuri shot straight for the water.

If he could just stretch a little farther, the Snitch would be his. It had noticed him, and was speeding along as fast as it could. Yuuri was gaining on it, but not as fast as Yurio was gaining on him.

Yuuri predicted the Snitch's move a millisecond before it happened. The wind suddenly gusted from behind him, and he spiraled into an ascent just as the Snitch did the same. Yurio shot through empty air beneath him; hell-bent on unseating Yuuri, he had not noticed the updraft. And as he saw Yurio wheel around, furious, Yuuri lunged, and his fingers closed tightly, the Snitch struggling in his grasp.

As Yuuri dismounted, Snitch in hand, Minako enveloped him in a hug.

"You were incredible," she told him firmly. "I knew you could beat that little bastard. Sorry. Don't tell anyone I used that word."

Yuuri thanked her, tried to hug her back, but he only had eyes for Victor because Victor's face was _glowing_ —one look at him and Yuuri realized that, as much as he would've missed Victor if he went back to Durmstrang, Victor would've missed Mahoutokoro too. _Victor wanted to stay._

Politeness dictated that Yuuri bow to his opponent, so he turned to face Yurio and braced himself for a tantrum, but found nothing. Literally nothing. Yurio had vanished. Then he noticed movement down by the shore and squinted to get a better look. As he watched, Yurio dismounted his broomstick on the sand and calmly walked up the deck into the Durmstrang ship. Huh. Before he had time to think that through, Victor was placing a hand on his shoulder and suggesting they get back to their dormitory.

"I'll walk you guys back up there," Minako told them. "That way you won't get into trouble if you run into anyone else on the way. We'll say I'd kidnapped you to do chores for me. Just pretend to be bored."

The walk back was thankfully uneventful. Victor yawned enormously outside the entrance to the dormitories, bid Minako goodnight and padded into the shoin. Yuuri lingered out in the hallway to thank her.

"So," she said, and she really did sound impressed, "you won. You get to keep Victor. Congratulations."

"Yeah," Yuuri replied, nodding. And then he blurted, before he could stop himself, "What does he want from me?" because it was second nature to seek her advice whenever something didn't make sense to him.

Minako raised her eyebrows and gave him an _are you serious?_ face.

"Based on the fact that I'm a teacher and you're a student," she told him, "I don't think that's an appropriate conversation for us to have. Go to bed, Yuuri."

And then she turned, leaving him alone in the hallway. Yuuri wasn't _entirely_ naïve and if it had been anyone else they were talking about, he would've suspected she might be right, but this was _Victor Nikiforov._ And Victor was...Victor. The rules that governed normal human behavior didn't apply to Victor Nikiforov.

Victor appeared to be asleep when Yuuri entered their room, so he dressed for bed as quietly as he could and got under the covers. But when he turned on his side, he found Victor's eyes were open and watching him silently. Victor, who was staying. Victor, who would wake up tomorrow in the futon next to Yuuri's, Victor who would have breakfast with him, Victor who would then bumble his way through Potions while Yuuri cringed at the mess in his cauldron.

"I can't believe you're still here," Yuuri mumbled, half to Victor, half to himself. "I thought I was doomed. But I won."

Victor looked him directly in the eye. The corners of his mouth turned up in a nearly imperceptible smile.

"If I had thought there was a chance you'd lose, I wouldn't have agreed to the game," he said simply. Yuuri just stared at him, reeling. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to smack Victor or crawl over him and kiss him. In that moment, Minako's suggestion seemed more possible than ever. But the space between their beds still felt like an insurmountable chasm, so Yuuri stayed where he was.

Yuuri watched Victor silently until his eyes closed and his breathing became deep and even.

"I think I've figured out what your problem is," Victor announced to Yuuri the next day. _What_ isn't _my problem?_ Yuuri thought. They had ducked into the restroom after Potions to wash their hands after Victor's concoction had blown up and spattered them both with goo. Yuuri was secretly grateful for Yurio's absence from the school this morning—he was too tired to be a punching bag today.

Victor dried his hands and took a step toward Yuuri so that their faces were inches apart.

"Do you know? Victor asked him.

"I lack confidence," Yuuri recited, because boy didn't he know it. Like every teacher and parent and mentor and friend and their mother hadn't been telling him that since before he could remember. Yuuri touched the tips of his fingers together nervously.

"That's right," Victor confirmed. "What can I do to help you fix it?"

"I... I don't know," Yuuri admitted, casting his eyes to the ground. It honestly seemed pointless to try and change the behavior pattern at this point.

"Last night—before you took off at the game. Something changed," Victor told him. He took Yuuri's chin in his hand and lifted it, gently prompting Yuuri to look at him. "What was it?"

 _You. You, you, you._

"I, uh..."

Victor actually moved his thumb a little higher, rubbing it lightly over Yuuri's lower lip like it was no big deal, like Yuuri wasn't totally going to come in his pants if he did it again. As if that wasn't enough, he took another step forward—except there wasn't any further forward to go, so he really just placed his leg in between Yuuri's. There was something really important that Yuuri was supposed to do, except he couldn't remember what it was.

"You can tell me," Victor whispered.

Yuuri suddenly remembered the important thing: breathing. He sucked in a gasp.

"You," he said, as boldly as he could manage. "You make me feel...better. About myself. Passionate"

"Glad I could be of service," Victor smirked. "What is it about me that makes you feel better about yourself?"

 _Uh, I don't know...maybe because you're a god among Seekers and out of the thousands of wizards in the world you decided_ I _was the one worthy of your attention, for reasons that have never been adequately explained to me?_ Yuuri wasn't sure how to put that into words that he could actually say out of his mouth and not just think.

"I still haven't really figured that out yet," Yuuri told him instead. It was partially true...but just barely. Yuuri still didn't entirely understand why Victor was really there, but he was kind of afraid to shed light on the question in case Victor suddenly realized _he_ didn't know why he was there either, and decided to leave.

"That's something we can work on," said Victor. "In the meantime, I want you to think more about passion, and what it means to you. What makes you feel passionate? If it's me then...what are the things about me that strike you as passionate, or that inspire you?"

 _If you want a list,_ Yuuri thought, _then we're going to be in this bathroom for a very long time._ As though the school had heard what he was thinking, the sound of the bell reverberated through the room. Time for Herbology.

"Just something to consider," Victor said, stepping away with a smile and hoisting his bag up on his shoulder.


	8. Chapter Eight

**A/N:** Just a warning, there is a detailed description of a panic attack in this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter Eight: Yuuri vs. Himself: Narrowly Escaping Death by Nervous Breakdown**

Nearly a month later, the concepts of "passion" and "confidence" as they applied to Quidditch felt significantly less abstract than they had before Victor came along. In addition to a lot of technical tips, which Yuuri picked up without too much trouble, Victor was full of more...meta-type advice, like "detaching yourself from the game" and "clearing your mind" and "knowing you will catch the Snitch." That last one was eluding Yuuri.

"You can't really know something is going to happen until it happens," he told Victor.

Victor looked him straight back in the face. "Yes, you can."

Okay then. Whatever you say, Victor. Yuuri just nodded and flew off in the other direction.

Yuuri was feeling a lot better about himself three weeks later, mainly due to the sharp improvement in his technical skills. Unfortunately, something in the back of his mind kept reminding him that his technical skills were pretty good in the first place and that he was focusing on that to avoid dealing with the real problem—which was falling to pieces whenever he got nervous.

"Ready to face Suzaku next weekend?" Takeshi asked, flopping down next to Yuuri in the shoin. Victor was getting some one-on-one tutoring in Transfiguration tutoring with their teacher due to his abysmal performance on their last quiz.

Well, when you put it so bluntly... "Uh..."

"Relax," Takeshi said, slapping him on the back. "Just because I overheard Kokoro Matsumoto bragging about how great their new Seeker is..."

"What?!" Yuuri sat up and stared at him.

"Oh yeah, she's apparently unstoppable," Takeshi continued breezily. "She's a fourth year. Crazy, right? Have you ever seen a fourth-year player before?"

"No," Yuuri swallowed. Don't ask, warned a voice in his head that sounded like Victor's, you don't want to know. "What...what's so special about her?"

"Kokoro said she caught the Snitch in less than thirty seconds at tryouts," Takeshi said. "Twice."

"Twice?!"

"Yeah," Takeshi told him. "They tried it again to see if the first time was just a fluke, but apparently she really is that good."

Yuuri flashed back to his own tryout four years ago, when he'd made the team by finding the Snitch in ten minutes. Everyone had been really impressed by that...

He felt cold sweat prickling at his neck...less than thirty seconds...It was as if everything he and Victor had worked on for the last few weeks just dribbled out of his brain through his ears. He was going to lose his first game of the year to a child in front of the whole school—and worse, in front of Victor. Oh God. Oh God. Oh—

"What are you talking about over there?" demanded Yuuko's voice from across the room.

"Quidditch," Takeshi called back. "Why— "

"Because Yuuri has that look on his face," said Yuuko, eyes narrowing. "Whatever you're telling him, knock it off."

"I was just— "

"Get over here," she ordered him. "I can't leave you guys alone for thirty seconds, can I?" Thirty seconds...

Just then, Victor entered the room. Yuuri wasn't sure what it was about his face that was giving away his panic to Yuuko, but apparently Victor saw it too because his eyebrows knitted as he strode directly over to him. Takeshi made himself scarce.

"What's on your mind?" he asked Yuuri, dropping his bag in a chair.

"Nothing," Yuuri replied automatically. Then he decided that he owed it to Victor to at least try to be honest. "Just the game next week..."

"Oh, you're nervous?" Victor said. "I remember my first game with the Skrzak, I was nervous then too."

"What happened?" Yuuri asked. Maybe he wasn't alone—maybe Victor had frozen too, and lost horribly.

"Oh I caught the Snitch in thirty seconds. It broke the record for a debut player in Russia."

Awesome.

"Oh," said Yuuri. It had to be either "oh" or screaming, so he went with "oh."

"Do you feel better now?" Victor prodded.

"Yeah," said Yuuri, but it was such an obvious lie that there was no way Victor wouldn't pick up on it. He decided it was a good time for a subject change. "How...How did your extra Transfiguration go?" Also feeble.

"Nice try," Victor sang, leaning forward and getting all up in Yuuri's personal space. Victor did that a lot and Yuuri was starting to get used to it, but when he was seconds from a panic attack it was the last thing in the world he wanted.

Retreat! Retreat! Retreat! his mind screamed at him.

"I'm...I'm going to bed," Yuuri announced, standing on wobbly legs. He didn't know if he'd feel better alone in his room, but he was pretty sure he couldn't feel worse than he did right now.

"Yuuri— "

Yuuri was through the doors in a heartbeat and—he knew it was so rude but he couldn't help it—he cast a spell to lock Victor and Takeshi out of the room. He collapsed facedown onto his bed and tried to take a breath.

His chest was unbearably tight, his pulse thudding like a bass drum in his ears until he was drowning in the sound of his own blood rushing through his body. It was so loud that it was overwhelming his other senses—he barely noticed his own sweating, or the taste of bile in his mouth until he felt like he was going to vomit. He just wanted to get away, but there was nothing to get away from.

Oddly enough, the thought that he had already gotten as far "away" as he could was the thing that seemed to slow his heartbeat. Yuuri could never predict what exactly would help when he got like this. It was frustratingly inconsistent—sometimes being positive did the trick, other times sinking into despair and accepting the fate of his doom seemed to be the way to go, and he never knew what would work until it happened. Someone was knocking softly on the door, probably Victor, and as soon as he'd wiped the sweat off his face and hands onto the bedsheet, he got up and peeked into the shoin.

It was Phichit—not Victor—and that was a good thing because he suddenly knew that Phichit was the person he wanted to see most.

"You okay in there?" Phichit asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Yuuri lied. "Just a stomachache."

"You haven't had one of those in a while," Phichit commented, leaning on the doorframe. Yuuri got the feeling that they both knew he wasn't talking about his stomach, but he was perfectly content keeping up the ruse just in case Phichit really did think that the gyudon they'd had for dinner hadn't sat well with him. Victor was talking quietly in the corner with Yuuko, but he had clearly noticed that Yuuri had emerged because he gave a side-eye to Phichit's back.

"I know," Yuuri told him. "I'm fine now." Maybe if he repeated it enough times, he'd actually start to believe it.

No such luck. Even his teachers noticed something was wrong as the week wore on. Yuuri found himself repeatedly fantasizing about going backwards in time during History of Magic—medieval wizards didn't have to worry about House Quidditch matches against eleven-year-old prodigies, and Yuuri started wondering if maybe he wouldn't have done better in like, the Dark Ages.

Yuuri and Victor spent most of the morning on November 12th, the day before the match with Suzaku, practicing alone in the air over the pitch. Yuuri had to admit that things seemed to be going well—he'd caught the Snitch consistently and repeatedly from the various angles Victor had him practicing—although he still hadn't nailed every diving trick.

Yuuri had been hovering close to the waves when he heard a sort of rumbling sound coming from the sea. An earthquake? No, Yuuri had felt those before and this wasn't like that. It sounded like something rising out of the ocean, like a whale or—as he suddenly remembered where he'd heard the noise before, the mast of the Durmstrang ship broke the surface of the water.

A smile broke out over Victor's face when he caught sight of it.

"Looks like Yurio's paying us another visit," he commented gleefully. "Just in time for the match!" Great, just what I need, thought Yuuri. A bigger audience for my inevitable defeat.

Yurio had evidently decided to go for an all-out No-Maj look today—he wore sneakers, skinny black jeans and a needlessly flashy leopard-print bomber jacket over a t-shirt emblazoned with a lion. Cats were apparently a thing with him. He came out carrying only his broomstick and wand. Yuuri supposed that the tiger-striped suitcase was still on the ship. Yakov called out after him:

"Yuratchka! Come back after lunch, you hear me?"

"Don't be such a nag!" Yurio shouted back. "Victor!"

"Privyet! Have you come to see the match?" Victor called down to him.

"Apparently someone told Yakov about Catch the Snitch," Yurio yelled back, "and he told Levsky— "

"Oh, Levsky!" Victor cried. "Is he your captain this year?"

"After you abandoned us!" Yurio bellowed. "He said it was a disgrace that I lost to the Japanese piggy and he wanted me to come watch the matches so I'd learn something. Like I need your help." Yurio marched up the stairs leading from the shore to the cliff side.

Victor turned to Yuuri.

"I didn't tell Yakov about the Catch the Snitch. Did you?" he whispered.

Yuuri shook his head. He'd never even spoken to Yakov.

"Oh well! It's time for lunch anyway." Victor began his descent and Yuuri followed after him.

Yurio picked the right day to come for lunch—it was katsudon again. He wolfed down three helpings as though he hadn't eaten since the last time they saw him.

"Hey," Yurio suddenly barked across the shokudou, "why are you staring at me, asshole?"

Yuuri thought this was a bit rich, coming from someone who had spent the entire meal glancing over at the Komainu table between every bite. Yuuri was able to follow his gaze to the Komainu Keeper, Otabek Altin, who glared confusedly at Yurio before going back to his meal. He considered pointing out the hypocrisy to Yurio, but decided not to interrupt Victor, who continued talking about Quidditch as though Yurio hadn't said anything.

"We were working on dives this morning," Victor continued. "Yuuri is still working on pulling out of a sideways—are you listening to me?"

"What?" said Yurio. He was staring over at the Komainu section again.

"I thought you said you were supposed to be learning about Quidditch. Who are you staring at?"

Victor turned around obviously, craning his neck in the search for the source of Yurio's distraction.

"Stop that," Yurio hissed, grabbing wildly for Victor's wrist in an attempt to wrench him back around.

"Do you know him?" Yuuri asked Yurio.

"Know who?" he snapped. "I don't know who you're talking about."

"You were looking at the Komainu Keeper. Otabek, right?"

"No I wasn't," Yurio shot back. "There's something wrong with your eyesight, Katsudon. Probably why you're going to lose tomorrow."

He refused to say anything else for the rest of the meal and kept his eyes trained directly on Victor and Yuuri, as though daring them to accuse his gaze of wandering again.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine: Yuuri vs. Fog: Fighting Against the Atmosphere-And Losing!**

Yuuri felt as though the rest of the day passed by unfairly quickly. Suzaku got the afternoon practice so he and Victor spent the evening in their dormitory working on Charms homework after Yurio sulked back down to the ship muttering about "that old man." He did everything within his power to not think about Quidditch—he even agreed to a trip to the onsen with Victor before bed, which Yuuri begrudgingly admitted was very relaxing and probably the reason he slept so well—he'd been bracing himself for an onslaught of Quidditch-related nightmares.

Once he actually woke up though...that was a different story. The sun peeked through the windows, as though it wanted to be sure it would be high enough in the sky to witness Yuuri's spectacular failure. He curled into a fetal position under his blankets, feeling all the tension that had seeped out of him in the onsen creeping back into his muscles, and he knew there was no way he'd drift back off to sleep.

Yuuri got out of bed when he couldn't stand it any longer and pulled his Quidditch robes out of his trunk. He hadn't even looked at them since last year—they'd sat at the bottom of his trunk all summer because he couldn't bear the sight of them. The cheerful amber yellow color seemed to mock him as he buttoned the clasp in the front. He looked at himself hard in the mirror, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room into the shoin.

Yuuko was reading quietly in the shoin alone, still dressed in pajamas. She smiled when Yuuri entered the room.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked her. She nodded. He considered continuing outside to the grounds, which was where he'd been headed, but he made the sudden decision to stay with her.

"I'm guessing Takeshi told you everything he heard about Suzaku's new Seeker, huh?"

"Mmhm," she said, closing her book and turning to face him. "Are you worried?"

"Yes," he whispered. In the quiet of the sunrise, it was impossible to lie to his oldest friend.

"I understand. How has training with Victor been going?" she asked.

"Good," Yuuri told her automatically. "Actually, maybe not. I don't know. I'm getting better at perfecting dives and turns, but I know he wants me to work on my confidence and I just..."

"Yuuri, I think you're an amazing Seeker," Yuuko told him. She said that all the time, and it rung less and less true every time he heard it. He knew she meant well though, and he didn't have the guts to ask her to stop saying it.

"Thanks," he mumbled halfheartedly.

"And I love being your captain," she continued. "Win or lose."

That was one he hadn't heard before.

"Thanks," he said again, but this time he meant it. He wished he could think of a better reply. He wanted to tell her that he loved having her as his captain, and that he trusted her, and to thank her for standing by him even when it would've probably made strategic sense to pick a new Seeker...

Takeshi's snoring suddenly became loud enough to be heard from the shoin. Yuuko looked as though she was trying hard not to smile as she fingered the edges of her book.

"What's going on with you two?" Yuuri asked. This conversation was more comfortable territory. He'd much rather talk about Yuuko's feelings than his own.

"I don't know what you mean," she replied, but she didn't look him in the eye.

"Yeah you do," he said. "You and Takeshi. You used to complain about him every day. What changed?"

"Nothing changed," she insisted. "He's a blowhard, like always. Maybe I just got more mature about handling him."

"Handling him, huh?" Yuuri raised his eyebrows at her.

"Take that back!"

She launched off the futon she'd been curled on and lunged for him, pushing him to the floor and smacking him in the face with one of the decorative pillows.

"I mean," Yuuri wheezed between blows, "I'm not judging! You can handle him all you— "

"That's right Mr. I-Sleep-With-Victor-Nikiforov," she said. "No judging from you!"

"I don't!" Yuuri protested.

"You do," Yuuko insisted, pinning his arms down as he made a desperate snatch for the pillow. "Takeshi said he woke up one morning and looked past Victor's barrier of suitcases and saw you two snuggled— "

"That was one time," Yuuri told her. "Yurio took Victor's bed. And what was Takeshi doing spying on us anyway?"

She didn't answer that question.

"So wait...nothing is going on between you and Victor?" She looked confused.

Yuuri shook his head.

"Really?"

He nodded.

"Hmm," she looked doubtful.

"Can you get off of me?" Yuuri asked.

Yuuko jumped up and settled back onto the futon, curling her legs back underneath her as though she'd never gotten up.

"Go do your...sojourn thing or whatever you were planning on doing," she said, waving in the direction of the door. "Don't let me stop you."

"Yuuko?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you," he told her again. She smiled at him and propped her head up on the decorative pillow, closing her eyes.

The grounds were foggy and chilly that morning, and despite his melancholy, Yuuri got too cold to sit outside and brood, so he went back up to the shoin after about fifteen minutes. Yuuko had changed into her Quidditch robes. Phichit and Guang Hong, also in Quidditch robes, had joined and they were discussing strategy for the match.

Yuuri was about to sit down and listen to them when Victor burst out of their dormitory wearing some of the most spectacularly, unnecessarily extra dress robes Yuuri had ever seen.

To be fair, Yuuri had few occasions to see dress robes in general. He spent breaks from school back in the No-Maj world, and Mahoutokoro didn't really hold dances, so he didn't have much to compare to—but even he could tell that these robes were needlessly dramatic. They were a crisp, velvety black with silver stitching around the hem and sleeves, with elaborately sculpted silver fastenings and a matching bowtie. Yuuri felt sure that no one had ever entered Mahoutokoro wearing something this fancy.

"Is that really necessary?" Yuuri asked, because seriously? Yuuri privately thought Victor looked just as good in the t-shirts and sweatpants he normally wore on weekends.

"It's your first match," Victor said, adjusting his cufflinks. "I wanted to wear something special."

Well, Yuuri thought, one good thing might come of this. If no one could take their eyes off of Victor's getup, they wouldn't notice him bombing the match, so...

"You look nice," Yuuri told him. Victor's expression flickered for a moment, but he seemed to shake off whatever was bothering him almost immediately.

Yuuri spent most of breakfast—natto again from House Komainu—sneaking glances at the Suzaku team who, in their amethyst robes, stood out easily from the other students in the Suzaku section.

"It won't help to stare at them, you know," Victor said between bites.

Yuuri knew that, but he wasn't sure what would help. Yurio had apparently decided to have breakfast on the ship, and Yuuri had to admit that listening to his nonstop bitching would've been a lot easier than having to make small talk himself.

Yuuri spent the walk down to the pitch fantasizing about the many ways that he could escape. There were the bushes behind the onsen, how long would it take them to find him in there? Or the sea—what if he swam to Iwo Jima and then Apparated home to Hasetsu to live like a No-Maj? Not super realistic, but better than this Quidditch match. The only good thing that happened was everyone did seem to be mesmerized enough by Victor's robes that no one was watching Yuuri freak out. Yurio's scoff could be heard on the other side of the island when he caught sight of them.

"Good luck, Yuuri," Victor told him as he mounted his broom. Yuuri hardly heard him.

"Ohayo, Mahoutokoro!" Ruika's voice rang out over the pitch. "Welcome to our second Quidditch match of the season—Tanuki versus Suzaku!" It wasn't until Yuuri heard her that he realized he could barely see her—

"This is most fog I have ever seen in my life," Emiko announced decisively. "I can't see the players, I can't see the castle, I can barely see you—"

Yuuri wasn't sure if Emiko realized this or not, but the reason she couldn't see the players was that they actually hadn't taken to the air yet. But she wasn't wrong about the fog—it was intense.

"Conditions are not ideal," Ruika admitted. "But we've played through thunderstorms before so—"

"I remember that!" Emiko butted in. "Was that last year? I got soaked!"

"House Suzaku!" Ruika spoke over her as the players swooped down from the cliff side. "This all-girl team promises to rise above their performance last year. Here comes Captain and Keeper Kokoro Matsumoto, with returning Chasers Meili Wang, Hanako Yoshida, and Chieko Uchiyama, and Beaters Yuki Murakami and Siilen Otgonbayar! And last but not least, fourth-year Seeker—can you believe that? —Minjae Park!"

Minjae Park was impossibly small—Yuuri had to wonder if she was entirely human and not part fairy. She was otherwise unassuming, which almost made her scarier.

"And House Tanuki," Emiko said, grabbing the megaphone. "Captain Yuuko Tsurumine with fellow Chasers Phichit Chulanont and Guang Hong Ji take to the pitch! I think Phichit is the best-looking boy at Mahoutokoro."

"Okay, but they're followed by Beaters— "

"I want to introduce them!" Emiko cut back in. "They're my house! You got to announce your house!"

"Okay, sorry. Continue."

"Beaters Seung-gil Lee and Takeshi Nishigori," she said, finishing Ruika's earlier sentence. "And here comes Keeper Mitsumi Yoshimura, that's my best friend. And... Yuuri Katsuki!"

"All returning players for House Tanuki this year," Ruika mentioned. "Yuuri Katsuki had a spectacular season last year up until the final match, where he...

Yuuri flew in a circle as fast as he could, the sound of the wind in his ears drowning out Ruika's comments about the worst match of his life.

"And the Snitch is released!" came Ruika's voice. "Here comes the Quaffle—"

Yuuri squinted in vain through the fog for the Snitch. He saw the Quaffle rise, only to be immediately swallowed by a swarm of amethyst and amber colored blurs. The fog obscured everything but barest traces of color—at the very least, Yuuri could tell whose side of the field he was on. But how was he supposed to find the Snitch in this haze?

"...Guang Hong Ji has the Quaffle...intercepted by Meili Wang..."

His nerves, if possible, mounted even more. It was as if the universe was punishing him. Any progress he thought he had made so far with Victor seemed meaningless now. Victor. Victor would have caught it by now, Yuuri thought bitterly, fog be damned! He probably expected Yuuri to have caught it by now too. What if this match proved what Yuuri had been thinking all along?

"Suzaku leads, 50-20!" Yuuri's thoughts snapped back to the match as Ruika's voice blared through the fog again. "They are absolutely dominating the pitch...I think..."

Yuuri darted across the pitch, then back again. Nothing, not even a glimpse of the sea. Yuuri was starting to lose track of how high up he was. He stopped, just in time to see a Bludger streaking at him. He spun and ducked, and realized with a further shock, that it was no Bludger—Bludgers weren't purple. Minjae Park had hurtled past him, and just as Yuuri had a jolt of relief that at least he still had enough reflexes to dodge opponents, he heard the fatal sound of a whistle.

"Park has caught the Snitch, Suzaku wins 220 to 20!"

Yuuri decided then and there that he was going to live the rest of his life up here in the fog. If he didn't come down, he wouldn't have to see the disappointment on Victor's face, or Yurio's gloating or whatever it was he was planning on doing, or his teammates...his stomach twisted into knots and simultaneously also felt full of lead. He sat there numbly for...minutes. He didn't know how many.

"Yuuri!" came Seung-gil's voice. "Where are you?"

He let Seung-gil call for him for another couple of minutes before responding. "Here," he called back, quietly. With any luck, Seung-gil wouldn't hear him and would give up and go back to school, leaving Yuuri to rot here in peace.

"There you are, you bastard." Damn it.

"Sorry, I'm...I'm coming," Yuuri told him. Seung-gil came into view through the fog and he looked pissed. "I'm sorry..."

"You should be," Seung-gil shot back. Yuuri cringed. "Kept me up here for like ten minutes shouting for you...thought I was going to crash into the stands. Everyone's waiting on the ground. They all think you floated off the pitch and died." I wish, thought Yuuri.

The cliff side came into view as they descended and Yuuri immediately wished for the cover of the fog again.

"Yuuri!" cried Yuuko, enveloping in a hug. He wished he had the guts to tell her that a hug was the last thing he wanted right now. "We were so worried!"

"Where is everyone?" Yuuri asked. The only people standing on the cliff were his teammates, Minako, Victor and Yurio.

"They went back to the school," Minako explained. "You were up there by yourself for a good fifteen minutes."

"We got slaughtered," Seung-gil said. Yup, Yuuri thought. We sure did.

"Thanks Seung-gil," Takeshi shot back. "I hadn't heard."

"That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen," Yurio declared. Yuuri considered the relative merits of jumping off the cliff before Yurio had a chance to finish his thought.

"I've played in blizzards where you could see better than that. I came all the way here from Durmstrang to watch the piggy play in a match and I couldn't even see two feet in front of my own face. What a waste of time." Yuuri just stared at him in disbelief. Was Yurio actually...trying to make him feel better?

It gave Yuuri the needed boost of courage to look Victor in the face. He probably already had his bags packed.

"Are you okay?" Victor asked, quiet and concerned.

"Yeah," Yuuri lied, pressing his lips together tightly.

"Let's take a walk."

Yuuri realized in that moment that a walk alone with Victor was exactly what he needed.

"We'll meet you back up at the school," Yuuko told them, reaching for Yuuri's broomstick. "I'll bring this back to the dormitory for you. Take your time."

The fog was somewhat lessened on the other side of the island. Yuuri trudged along so slowly that he was pretty sure he just left drag marks in the sand instead of footprints. Victor had apparently shed his cloak at some point and was back in his sweatpants and a t-shirt. Evidently he'd changed after the match.

"You know—" Victor started, but Yuuri interrupted.

"It was all my fault," he whispered.

"No, it wasn't," Victor told him firmly. "I might've lost too if I'd been playing in fog like that."

Instead of making him feeling better, Victor's words made him realize something terrible—everyone was being nice to him, not because it wasn't his fault, but because they couldn't see how badly he had played. The Snitch had been right behind him and he'd failed to spot it—not because of the fog, but because he couldn't get his head out of his ass long enough to look for it properly.

This almost felt worse than last year when his failure had been right out in the open under a clear sky for everyone to see. Now the world—and worse, Victor—was thinking he'd been right behind Minjae Park when she'd caught the Snitch, not sitting like a useless lump as she streaked past. It was utterly pathetic.

Yuuri put some distance between himself and Victor because the more fog there was between them, the less likely Victor would see the tears escaping his eyes. He was actually holding himself together better than he'd expected in that he was not outright sobbing in a pitiful heap on the sand, but still. He didn't want Victor to see his weakness and decide he wasn't worth the effort.

Logically he understood that he'd probably feel better if he let Victor in on the fact that he actually did screw up, but he just couldn't bring himself to say it. Maybe later, he thought.

The two weeks that followed were the most agonizing Yuuri could remember. Last year, after his loss, he had gone home to Hasetsu to lick his wounds for two months, but that just wasn't an option with a month and a half left of classes until the winter break.

The next morning, Yuuri went to Yuuko privately and attempted to tender a resignation, but she just smacked him lightly on the back of the head and told him to knock it off and get his butt over to the pitch for practice with Victor. Yuuri was cagey about telling Victor why he was late—something told him Victor wouldn't be happy hearing that Yuuri had tried to give up.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten: Yuuri vs. Guilt: Bad Coping Mechanisms and the People Who Rely on Them**

House Tanuki as a whole was noticeably less glum than usual about the loss. It seemed to be the collective opinion of all the students that the blame for their defeat could be attributed solely to the fog and bad luck. Absolutely nobody blamed Yuuri—and the guilt was eating him alive from the inside out. He considered standing on the table in the shokudou during dinner to dramatically announce his failure, but in the end decided that he could relieve most of his agony by telling Victor.

Yuuri wasn't sure if the stress of keeping a secret made him crack or if he'd finally built up enough courage to come clean, but he finally broke the news to Victor.

"I'm not sure why your dives have been suffering," Victor mused aloud as they hovered in the air over the pitch after Yuuri did something he had not done since their first practice and smacked headfirst into the cliff. "Why is this loss affecting you so strongly? I keep telling you it was a fluke— "

"It wasn't a fluke!" Yuuri burst out, covering his face with his hands. "The Snitch was right behind me and I didn't even know she'd caught it until I heard the whistle."

Victor was quiet for a moment and Yuuri envisioned him slowly descending and walking away from the pitch, never to come back.

"So that's what's been bothering you," he replied quietly. Yuuri just nodded, face still hidden in his hands. "I wish you'd told me sooner."

"Why?" Yuuri sulked. "So you wouldn't have to keep wasting your time with me?"

Victor was silent again, for long enough that Yuuri peeked through his fingers to see if he hadn't actually left. The moment he did, he wished he hadn't. Victor looked genuinely hurt.

"Why would you say something like that?" he asked. "When have I ever given any indication that I wanted to leave?"

"Sorry," Yuuri mumbled, wishing he could've just kept his stupid mouth shut and let Victor keep believing he'd lost due to the fog.

"That's okay!" Victor seemed to snap right back into his usual cheerful self. "But I see now that your confidence isn't getting any better. So I've decided that we're not going to practice again until the next match."

Yuuri tore his hands away from his face and almost fell off his broomstick.

 _"What?!"_

"You had a point—we _are_ wasting time if you're so distraught you can't even do the dives you had perfected before. So we're taking a break."

"But...but...but..." Yuuri stuttered.

"You wouldn't argue with your coach, would you?"

"I— "

"Good then," Victor said, turning and beginning his descent. "Come on. The onsen is probably empty right now—let's go for a soak. After that you can help me with my essay for Defensive Magic—you know I'm no good at the theoretical stuff."

Yuuri stared after him incredulously. No practice for two weeks! What was Yuuko going to say?

Apparently not much. Yuuko smiled, patted him on the back and told him that whatever Victor suggested was certainly for the best, then went back to practicing some kind of nonverbal charm that seemed to mostly involve pelting Takeshi with her Quidditch socks.

So, that was that. Yuuri was supposed to just take it easy for two weeks and...do extra credit work for classes? Arrange more Student Council meetings? Yuuri wasn't sure how he was expected to fill the time he normally spent drilling with Victor until the following morning at five o'clock when Victor poked him awake.

"Time to go running," he sang.

"You're not serious," Yuuri groaned into his pillow.

"We can't have you getting out of shape again, can we?" Victor shook his shoulder.

It was like the first month of school all over again. Yuuri ran, and did sit-ups and crunches and all the other awful stuff that Victor could think up for him to do every day up until the next match.

Yuuko and Phichit (Yuuri suspected that she had enlisted him) took it upon themselves to remind Yuuri at every opportunity that the House Kirin Quidditch team was basically Arvin Cantre babysitting a bunch of twelve-year-olds who didn't know what they were doing.

"They'll definitely be a great team in a few years," Phichit told him for the tenth time. "But by then they won't be our problem!"

"Uh huh," Yuuri responded. "Got it. Yeah."

Logically he knew they were trying to make him feel better, but all Yuuri heard was the unintentional undertone of _if you screw up against a bunch of kids, there's no hope for you._

The Saturday before the match, Yuuri woke to a pounding on the door, but not the sliding doors of his dormitory. It took him a couple of minutes for his groggy brain to process that someone was banging on the door of the shoin outside the House Tanuki dormitories. Who on earth would be doing that at this hour? Yuuri squinted at the clock through the darkness.

"Hey! Katsudon!" Only one person ever called him _that._ Victor showed no signs of stirring, but the knocking was just getting louder. Yuuri got out of bed and tiptoed through the shoin before Yurio woke up the whole house.

"Yurio?"

"What took you so long?" Yurio demanded in lieu of a greeting. He was wearing a slightly different ensemble of overwhelming cat prints and behaving as though he'd been up for hours.

"It's six in the morning," Yuuri told him.

"Then get me Victor, lazy pig," Yurio ordered. Yuuri raised his eyebrows at him and said nothing.

"Please," Yurio gritted out. It looked like it had caused him physical pain to say it.

Yuuri let him into the shoin and went to fetch Victor.

"Victor," Yuuri whispered, poking at Victor's shoulder. Victor snuggled deeper into his blankets.

"Victor. _Victor."_

"Mmm," Victor hummed. He opened his eyes halfway and lifted the covers as if to invite Yuuri in.

"Get in, it's warm," he offered.

"Yurio is here," Yuuri told him, though the idea of snuggling up with Victor and sleeping for a couple more hours was incredibly tempting.

"So? He can sleep in your bed then," Victor said with a smile. "Come here."

And then Victor's hand snaked out and yanked Yuuri into the bed. He slotted Yuuri up against him back-to-front and— _gulp!_ —Yuuri felt himself being poked in the back by something that was _definitely_ not a knee.

"I was having a wonderful dream..." Victor murmured in his ear. _Yeah,_ Yuuri thought, _I noticed._ "...about you..."

Yuuri forgot all about Yurio in an instant. He closed his eyes and relaxed back into Victor, feeling the warmth of his body and his arm wrapped around Yuuri's waist...

There was a ripping sound and Yuuri's eyes snapped open. Yurio had evidently attempted to knock on the sliding door but, not understanding that it was made of shoji paper (or just not caring), had torn right through it.

Yurio peered at them through the hole made by his fist. He made a noise of disgust and his green eyes narrowed.

"Get up!" he barked. "Victor, teach me the Wronski Feint."

"Maybe later," Victor murmured, hugging Yuuri tighter against him, tucking his knees under Yuuri's.

"No!" Yurio insisted. "Right now. Before breakfast. Other people are going to use the pitch later in the day."

Victor huffed near Yuuri's ear. It was such a small thing, but Yuuri thought it was the first time Victor had demonstrated even the slightest bit of annoyance with Yurio.

"Coming," he told Yurio. "It's cold out there, wear a jacket."

"You think _this_ is cold?" Yurio said. "I played last week in a blizzard. The snow was up to my shoulders when we finished. And we still went swimming afterwards."

"Next time," Victor whispered, planted a kiss in Yuuri's hair— _next time_ _what?_ —and got out of bed. Yuuri watched him get dressed. Before he stepped into the shoin, Victor took a moment to stare at Yuuri, who was covered up to his chin in blankets, and based on the look on his face, it couldn't have been plainer that Victor didn't want to leave.

"What is taking so long?" Yurio whined. "Hurry up!"

Victor walked out of the room, leaving Yuuri to fall asleep basking in Victor's remaining body warmth and breathing in the smell of him.

Yuuri napped for only a short time before Victor's silk sheets got too cold and he forced himself to get out of bed. He decided to skip the run today and headed straight down to breakfast after getting dressed.

Victor and Yurio were already there, looking windswept and red-nosed. Yuuri agreed with Yurio that Victor was being sensitive about the weather because Mahoutokoro was pretty much always warm, and they got snowstorms back in Hasetsu. Victor was drinking coffee—Yurio was stubbornly chugging cold mugicha.

"How did practice go?" Yuuri asked them, sitting down next to Victor. "Did you learn the Wronski Feint?"

One look at their faces and Yuuri could tell that he had not.

"We worked on some basics," Victor said lightly, taking another sip of his coffee.

Yurio snarled and then his eyes darted over to the Komainu section as though he couldn't help himself, despite the fact that the shokudou was empty except for the three of them.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Yuuri asked him. He was starting to think Yurio might have a nervous tic.

"Doing what?"

"Looking over there."

"I'm not looking _at anyone,"_ Yurio insisted, though he clearly was.

He did it _again._ Yuuri sighed and tapped his wand on the table. Another coffee soared through the doorway and onto his placemat.

"Did you go running this morning?" Victor asked him. Yuuri shook his head.

"Good. I forgot to tell you that I don't want you doing anything today," Victor said.

"Nothing?"

People started filing in then, including the rest of the House Tanuki Quidditch team. Once Victor had greeted them all, he went back to the previous conversation.

"In fact, I want you to take it easy tomorrow too. No fancy dives, no feints. Just focus on flying your best."

Yuuri's insides went cold. Victor just wanted him to float around like a blob during a _match?_ The rest of the team and Yurio were watching their conversation.

"I don't know if you just forgot or what, but we've talked about this a _million times_ ," he whispered furiously. "You were there. You saw what happened in the last match. I did so incredibly bad that everyone thought it was the fog but there was nothing actually wrong. Do you understand? Despite having every advantage I lost because I fall apart under pressure and now you're telling me— "

Victor clapped his hand over Yuuri's mouth. "Wow, grumpypants."

Yuuri got up and stomped off because he felt like he was about to explode. His best wasn't good enough and now Victor didn't even want him to try his best? In what world did _that_ make any sense?


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven: Yuuri vs. A Cliff Round II: Also, How Not to be an Asshole!**

Yuuri spent the rest of the day avoiding everyone, but especially Victor. He went for a run, even though Victor had told him not to. He puttered around on the beach, ducked into an empty classroom and hid behind a screen so he wouldn't have to talk to Minako, and did some extra credit Herbology work in the gardens, which earned him a trip to the nurse to treat a welt on his nose where a vine had smacked him across the face.

 _I have to focus on me,_ he thought. _I need to concentrate on myself._

Yurio was at dinner, but Victor wasn't. Yuuri stubbornly decided not to ask where he was (even though he was curious), but luckily Yuuko did it for him.

"He's eating with Yakov," Yurio told them, slurping up his udon. "Idiot." Yuuri wasn't sure whether the insult was in reference to Victor or Yakov, but knowing Yurio it was probably both, and for no reason.

Victor didn't come to bed until Yuuri was already asleep, and he had left the dormitory by the time Yuuri got up. Yuuri was worried about humiliating himself in front of the whole school _again,_ but fighting with Victor was...almost worse. And yet he didn't want to apologize because it wasn't _his_ fault that Victor was giving him terrible advice.

Victor was at breakfast, so apparently he hadn't decided to totally abandon him. Yuuri sat awkwardly next to him, but neither of them said a word to one another.

A first-year boy approached their table, visibly bouncing with excitement and Yuuri knew he recognized that red streak in his hair, but he couldn't remember the name of this kid if his life depended on it.

"Yuuri!" the boy squeaked. "I just wanted to say good luck! I can't believe I get to watch you play again, you're so amazing."

What game had this kid been watching last month?!

"Uh..."

"I got this shirt," the boy continued, unzipping his jacket and revealing a nauseatingly yellow t-shirt emblazoned with "GO YUURI KATSUKI!" Great. He was pretty sure he wasn't being mocked because the kid was too young to truly grasp the finer points of irony, but that didn't really make him feel any better.

"Oh."

"Do you...do you not remember me?" the kid asked, looking utterly crestfallen.

Yuuri squelched the guilt rising in his chest. _Focus on you,_ he told himself sternly.

"Sorry," he said, but it came out sounding incredibly insincere.

The kid hung his head and walked away from their table. The rest of the team appeared to be too busy talking amongst themselves to have noticed the exchange.

"Yuuri," came Victor's voice from next to him. It was the first time he'd heard it in twenty-four hours. "How can you find the strength to motivate yourself if you can't even try to motivate the people who look up to you? I'm disappointed in you."

And then, apparently not even noticing Yuuri's astonishment, Victor got up and left the table. Yuuri's heart dropped somewhere in the vicinity of his shoes.

 _Can we talk for a second about what you just did to_ my _motivation?!_ Yuuri thought.

Yuuri and the rest of his team had almost reached the cliff by the time Victor reappeared. He was wearing those stupid fancy robes again.

"Now remember," he said to Yuuri, as if they weren't fighting right now, "I want you to..."

Yuuri couldn't decide whether to apologize to Victor or yell at him, so he settled for saying nothing and striding right past as though he hadn't heard him.

"Ohayo, Mahoutokoro!" came Ruika's voice from the megaphone. "Today's match will be a fight for third place—Tanuki versus Kirin!"

"How are you?" Emiko said.

"How are who?" Ruika asked.

"How are _you?"_ Emiko repeated.

"How am _I?"_

"Yes."

"Fine? Why do you ask?"

"Well, I just feel like we don't get to spend that much time together during the school year since we're in different houses and— "

"Yuuri." Victor's voice came from behind him. He spun around.

"What?"

"Turn around." Victor commanded. Yuuri huffed, rolled his eyes and turned to face the pitch.

"What, like this?"

Victor didn't answer. Instead, he wrapped his arms around Yuuri's waist from behind and rested his chin on Yuuri's shoulder.

Yuuri stopped thinking, stopped breathing, stopped _everything._ Without saying a word, Victor had brought them back to yesterday morning before they started snapping at each other, when they were nuzzled in bed together, comfortable and quiet. The ridiculous dress robes sent a message too— _I'm still proud of you. No matter what._

And then Victor pulled away, and Yuuri stared after him as he descended the steps down the cliff side to reach the stands.

"C'mon," Phichit, nudged him and Yuuri shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He mounted his broomstick and kicked off.

"—will be the last match before our winter break—" Ruika was saying.

"—during which me and Ruika are going to Seoul to see the _greatest wizarding band in the whole world_ —MAJIC 8—perform _live_ — "

"The players take to the sky— "

Yuuri caught sight of Yurio's loud leopard-print jacket in the crowd. He sat slouched next to Victor with his arms folded over his chest. On his other side was Otabek Altin, though they didn't appear to be interacting. For some reason, Yurio, Yakov and Victor were all sitting in Komainu section of the stands.

"—was totally sold out in the first day but mom got tickets through work! It's the first show of the tour for their new— "

"The Snitch is released! And here comes the Quaffle— "

"Sung Choi is my favorite; he usually wears— "

The beautiful calm Victor had bestowed upon Yuuri with his hug continued to linger and his mind felt clear, focused. He caught a glimpse of the boy in the crowd with the red streak in his hair. Minami. That was it.

"HEY MINAMI!" Yuuri shouted at him. "I LIKE YOUR SHIRT! THANKS!"

Minami didn't miss a beat. "YOU'RE AMAZING!" he shouted back. Yuuri watched him dance in his seat for a second. It made him feel a lot better.

"The Quaffle is released and the game begins!" came Ruika's voice.

Yuuri barely had time to wheel away from the stands before the Quaffle was in the air. Guang Hong had reached the Quaffle first, and was dodging Umi Tamura, one of Kirin's Chasers. He made his way through the other two Chasers with ease, but stopped abruptly as a Bludger from Arvin Cantre blocked his path. Hot on Phichit's trail, In-Jung Seong knocked the Quaffle away from him, allowing Tamura to grab it close the water's surface.

Yuuko and Phichit soon caught up with the action, and all three Tanuki Chasers descended on Tamura. The waves and the speed of the brooms kicked up spray, temporarily obscuring the action from view. Phichit soon emerged from the confusion with the Quaffle, and scored Tanuki's first goal.

"10-0 Tanuki, and a great start for them in a match with much better conditions than their last..."

It took all of Yuuri's concentration to tune out the commentary and tear his thoughts away from the previous match. He closed his eyes and tried to fill his mind with things that kept him focused. Katsudon, soaking in the onsen, Victor. The clarity he had felt at the beginning of the match came back to him. He reopened his eyes, and stared at the pitch as a whole for a minute, waiting for a sudden movement or glint of gold to capture his attention. With no luck, however, he switched tactics.

He watched the action developing below more closely. All the players were drifting slightly to the right, meaning that, at the speed they were all going, the wind was consistently blowing hard in that direction.

He gave up scanning the entire pitch for the Snitch, and focused on the right half. The Snitch would be less likely to go against the wind—that would slow it down, and make it much easier to spot. Yuuri descended in a wide circle, sweeping his gaze up and down the right side. He caught Victor's eye for a moment.

"Yuuri!" he heard Takeshi yell.

Yuuri blinked, then ducked instinctively. A Bludger zoomed over him. He looked up, and saw Arvin Cantre circle the pitch after it. Apparently Cantre was focusing his attacks on more irreplaceable players instead of going after Beaters and Chasers. The Keeper would likely be next.

The match was turning into a massacre. Yuuko, Phichit, and Guang Hong were performing exceptionally well—it appeared that the Tanuki Chasers had not been idle during the practices in between this match and the last one. Thirty minutes in, and the score was 90-30. The Kirin players were visibly tired—few of them had probably ever trained more than a half hour at a time. Soon Yuuri might not even have to catch the Snitch to win at all.

Tamura had the Quaffle again—she managed to stay in the scoring area for almost a minute, ducking and weaving, waiting for her beleaguered teammates to catch up. And then several things happened at once. A Bludger came out of nowhere, almost unseating Yuuko, and slammed into Mitsumi. Yuuri spotted the Snitch hovering on the other side of the pitch near Team Kirin's right goalpost. He accelerated, speeding toward the other end, but stopped as he heard screams from the megaphone as Mitsumi slid off her broom and plummeted towards the water.

"Mitsumi!" Emiko cried. "Foul!"

Yuuri's prediction had been right. Cantre had evidently seen the opportunity for what it was and aimed the Bludger for Mitsumi while the Quaffle was near the goalposts. Yuuko and Phichit both abandoned their pursuit of the Quaffle and dived to catch her. Before the referee could blow his whistle for timeout, Kirin had scored.

"—technically not a foul," Ruika was explaining to Emiko, who looked close to tears. "Aiming a Bludger at the Keeper is a legal move if the Quaffle is within the scoring area— "

A column of lava, smaller than the ones used for the stands, formed a platform for the Tanuki players to land. Yuuri was considerably farther away than the rest of the team. He had lagged for a moment, looking around wildly, but the Snitch was nowhere to be seen.

Yuuko managed to support a breathless Mitsumi to the rest of the team. Yuuri saw that she was having trouble talking, but was gesturing feebly to her broom, which was still floating next to the goalposts where she had fallen from it. Yuuko was arguing with her.

"—not happening," Yuuri heard her say as he landed.

"I can still play," Mitsumi wheezed, "just—" she heaved a shuddering breath, "—get me back on my broom, and—"

"This isn't a discussion," Yuuko cut in, as forceful as Yuuri had ever heard her, "I'm the Captain, and I'm taking you out of the game."

Fuming in between gasps, Mitsumi was escorted to the school nurse. The whistle blew, and it was time to take to the air again.

Without a Keeper, the Tanuki players quickly lost their advantage. The Kirin Chasers seemed energized, at the very least because they were no longer fighting a lost cause. Cantre appeared to sense that Takeshi and Seung-Gil were itching to level the playing field, and kept up the offensive, knocking the Bludgers all over the field, keeping the opposing Beaters occupied.

Five minutes later, the match was tied. The wind was blowing harder now, the waves crashing ominously against the obsidian stands. More than once, a Chaser dived into the water after the Quaffle, and emerged waterlogged and spluttering.

Yuuri had just ducked a fifth Bludger assault from Cantre when he saw it again. The Snitch was struggling against the wind near the middle of the field. Yuuri put on a burst of speed—Kirin's Seeker was nowhere to be seen. The Snitch abruptly turned away from the wind and sped off, almost at water level, dancing amongst the churning waves. Yuuri turned as well, flying faster than he ever had.

He sensed that the Snitch would veer up when it reached the stands. If he turned too soon, he would overshoot, and he might not get another opportunity. There was only one thing to do. In a fit of reckless abandon, Yuuri accelerated even faster. The pillar of rock was coming closer and closer. There was no way he could stop in time, but no time for the Snitch to turn.

With a sickening crunch that sounded above the roaring of the sea below and the crowd above, Yuuri slammed into the rock, pinning the Snitch to it with his body. Blood spurted from his nose like a faucet. He could feel the Snitch struggling against his chest, and he carefully maneuvered to grab it before it could escape.

They'd won. He had done exactly what Victor had told him _not_ to do, but they'd won nonetheless. Yuuri wiped his streaming nose on his sleeve once before giving it up as a bad job and accepting the hugs and cheering from his teammates.

They landed together as a mass on the cliff side and Yuuri stared wildly around, looking for Victor. He found him—standing apart from the crowd, arms crossed over his chest.

Yuuri detached himself from Yuuko and Phichit and stared at Victor, still clutching the Snitch in his hand. Victor slapped a hand to his forehead. Oh...

Then he straightened up, looked Yuuri in the eye and stretched out his arms in front of him, beckoning Yuuri to run to him.

"Victor!" Yuuri cried, leaping forward and intending to rush straight into Victor's embrace. At the last possible second, Victor retracted his arms and side stepped him, leaving Yuuri sprawled on the grass. _I guess I deserved that,_ he thought.

"Not on the robes please!" Victor said with a smile. Oh yeah. Yuuri glanced down at the blood spattered all over the front of his robes, then took out his wand and mended the break with a simple spell.

The House Tanuki party on the beach lasted well into the evening. They played suikawari, which was something most of the wizarding kids had never done before. Yurio wailed on at least a dozen watermelons by himself before being hauled bodily back onto the Durmstrang ship kicking and screaming by Yakov. Yuuri and Victor sat together, watching the ship set sail and disappear under the waves against the sunset.

"Do you miss it?" Yuuri asked him.

Victor somehow knew they were talking about Durmstrang. "No," he told Yuuri, smiling. "This place feels more like home than Durmstrang ever did."

"Speaking of home," Yuuri started, "um, the winter break is coming up. Are you going back to Russia, or...?" Yuuri had been avoiding this question up until now because the thought of two weeks without Victor was pretty depressing. _When did I get like this,_ he wondered?

"No, I'm going to Hasetsu with you," Victor told him. Yuuri had not even considered that an option; it hadn't even occurred to him to invite Victor. "Unless you don't want me to, then..."

"No, no, no," Yuuri said quickly. "I mean, yes. I mean...I want you. To come to Hasetsu. I want you to come to Hasetsu."

Nice save.

"Really?" Victor asked. His face lit up as though he seriously thought Yuuri was going to say no.

"Yeah," Yuuri told him. "My parents own an inn with an onsen. They're No-Majs but it's...I mean, I don't know what you're used to, but it's home, I guess, so..."

"I'm sure I'll love it," Victor assured him, resting his head on Yuuri's shoulder. "You'll be there."

The next morning, Yuuri sat in the aviary laboring over a letter to his parents.

 _Dear Mom and Dad,_

 _It's going to be great to see you again next week. I just wanted to let you know before we arrived that Victor is going to be staying with us during the break._ _I guess since we share a dormitory he can just stay in my room if that's_ _Can you get one of the guest rooms ready for him?_

 _Love,_

 _Yuuri_

 _PS: If you could take down all the posters of him in my bedroom before he gets there, I'd really appreciate it. And hide the action figures in the second drawer of my bedside table. Also I think there's a lock of his hair in there that I bought from the charity auction last year. Please just throw that away._

As one of the crows flew away with Yuuri's letter (but not without rapping him hard on the head first for no apparent reason) and Yuuri was contemplating the relative merits of owls over the vicious crows, Guang Hong arrived in the nest.

"Making sure your parents have everything ready for you?" Yuuri asked him.

Instead of just nodding or replying like Yuuri expected him to, Guang Hong turned beet red and hid the letter he was holding behind his back.

"...or not?"

"It's, um..." Yuuri couldn't imagine what on earth could be in the letter that would be _this_ embarrassing for a thirteen-year-old.

"You don't have to tell me," Yuuri reassured him. "Unless it's something against school rules. Then you probably should tell me."

"It's just..." Guang Hong hesitated. "It's just a letter to my pen pal."

Yuuri could immediately tell that whoever this pen pal was, Guang Hong was sincerely hoping they would not just remain a "pal."

"Where's your pen pal from?" Yuuri asked.

"He's American," Guang Hong told him as though he couldn't help himself, still blushing furiously. "He goes to Ilvermorny. I met him at the World Cup when we had dinner on the shoutengai. I..." Guang Hong clamped his mouth shut, as though he'd given away too much.

"That's really cool," Yuuri said.

"Yeah?" Guang Hong clutched the letter in front of him. It was addressed to _Leo De La Iglesia, Thunderbird House Dormitory, Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._ "I'm hoping if we make it to the final he might come to watch the match."

Yuuri smiled at him and went to exit the aviary, leaving Guang Hong alone with his _super embarrassing_ letter.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve: Let's Take a Break! Winter in Hasetsu!**

"Please don't levitate your suitcases, Victor," Yuuri hissed in his ear. "There are No-Majs who can see us from here."

"Oops," Victor tucked his wand back in his pocket. "How else am I supposed to get them all inside then?"

 _I'm not the one who insisted you needed to bring all fifteen suitcases to Hasetsu,_ Yuuri thought. _We're only going to be here for two weeks._

"One at a time, I guess," Yuuri told him instead, lugging his own trunk and one of Victor's suitcases together. The taxi driver who had picked them up from the rural area to which they'd Apparated looked suspicious as to how all of the suitcases had fit into his car, but seemed to think it best not to ask.

"I'm home!" Yuuri called as he opened the front door. He was immediately bowled over by some kind of mystery fluff monster who wasted no time in trying to lick the inside of his nostrils.

"Help," he tried to say, but it was so muffled he doubted anyone heard him. Behind him, he heard a thud as Victor dropped the suitcase he'd been holding.

"Makkachin!" Victor cried. The fluff monster used Yuuri's chest as a launching pad to pounce on Victor. "What are you doing here?"

Yuuri got to his feet and turned around to look at Victor, who was being assaulted with love by a gigantic poodle.

"How...I thought he was at Durmstrang?" Yuuri asked no one in particular.

Just then, he spotted a distinctive tiger-striped suitcase on the other side of the room. Oh boy...

"Victor?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Did you tell Yurio you were coming here for the winter break?" Yuuri asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, why?"

"I think—"

"Yuuri!" Yuuri's mother came rushing in from the kitchen to greet him. "And you must be Victor."

She bowed to him.

"We have a guest who says he knows you," she continued. "He got here a few days ago."

Three guesses who that might—

"VICTOR!"

There it was.

Yurio came stomping out of the hallway with his broomstick.

"I want you to teach me the side dive that Katusdon tried to do during his last game," he demanded as though Yuuri wasn't right there. "But I'll do it without breaking my face."

"Yuuri, did you break your nose?" his mom asked, reaching for his face.

"No! Well, yes. But mom, I—"

"Where do you usually fly around here?" Victor asked him. "Do you have a pitch?"

"There's not—"

"Yuuri's home!" his dad called, coming to join the confused jumble of people plugging up the genkan. Makkachin gazed adoringly up at Victor, leaning on his legs to prevent him from walking away.

"Hi dad! Did you get my—" Yuuri started, only to be interrupted by multiple people at a time.

"Katsudon! Where is the Quidditch pitch?" Yurio insisted.

Victor said, "I didn't introduce you yet! Yuuri, meet Makkachin. Makkachin, this is your new—"

"Are you boys hungry? I could make you lunch if you—"

"Lunch would be great mom, thanks!" Yuuri called over everybody.

He glanced over at Victor, getting ready to apologize for the chaos, but Victor just smiled back at him, eyes shining.

"It already feels like home," he said.

Yuuri's parents had evidently ignored his request for them to hide or destroy all of his Victor memorabilia and when Victor barged right into his bedroom, Yuuri scrambled in from behind him to repair the damage.

"You have a dakimakura of me?" Victor asked, picking the giant pillow up off the bed. "How does it compare to cuddling with the real thing?"

 _I wouldn't know,_ Yuuri thought, scrubbing his hands over his face to hide his burning cheeks. _I didn't buy that thing for cuddling._

"Oh my God!" Victor exclaimed, abandoning the body pillow for the long lock of silver hair draped neatly over Yuuri's bedside. "Did you win this at the Nimbus Drive for—"

"Yes," Yuuri groaned into his hands.

"I cut my hair for that," Victor whined, stroking it like a kitten. "I don't regret it because it was a good cause but I really miss having it long sometimes. I've been thinking about growing it back out, what do you think?"

"I..." Yuuri was so overwhelmed he couldn't think about Victor's damn _hair_. Victor was in Yuuri's bedroom, surrounded by himself. And he didn't even seem to mind.

"Oh, your Skrzak calendar is on the wrong date," Victor said, flipping past an image of his own half-naked body. "Have you really forgotten to change this thing since last February? You should be on Kuznetsov—he was September..."

"I think I hear Yurio calling you," Yuuri said over Victor, steering him out the door and shoving him into the hallway. Yuuri closed the door firmly behind them and made a mental note to burn the entire room to the ground later.

Yurio was devastated to learn that the nearest Quidditch pitch was right in the middle of _there isn't one, this is a No-Maj town_ and he spent the rest of the day complaining loudly about it.

"What is there to do around here if there's nowhere to play Quidditch?" Yurio asked during lunch. It was difficult to hear him through his chewing.

"When did you get here, Yurio?" Yuuri asked.

"Oh Yuri's been here five days already," Yuuri's mom answered for him. Yurio's mouth was full of katsudon, so he just nodded.

What on earth had Yurio been doing in his house for five days?! God, Yuuri hoped he didn't snoop around in his room too.

"Not that I'm not happy to see you," Yuuri told him (which was only partly a lie), "but why are you here instead of at home?"

"My mother told me my grandpa wasn't coming for Christmas this year," Yurio said. "And since he's the only person I actually like in that family, I had no reason to go home."

He didn't seem in a big hurry to explain further.

"Well, there's always sightseeing," Yuuri started listing, going back to Yurio's original question. "There's a ninja castle nearby..."

Victor gasped. "A ninja castle?!"

"Or shopping," Yuuri suggested. Yurio perked right up.

"What kind of shopping?"

"All kinds," Yuuri told him. "There's a shoutengai not too far away. They have food, clothes—"

"Do they sell Bludgers?" Yurio interrupted.

"No," Yuuri said. Of all the many things a person could buy in Hasetsu, he felt confident that Bludgers were not one of them. "Oh, and they only take yen."

"What's yen?" Victor asked.

"No-Maj money."

Yurio dropped his elbows to the table and rested his head in his hands, huffing in annoyance.

"Then what is the point of this place?" he asked the room in general.

"Well, what have you been doing for the last five days?" Yuuri asked him.

"Nothing," he sulked. "I've been bored out of my mind."

"There are a lot of things we could do," Yuuri reminded him. "Just...No-Maj things. We could see a movie."

"What's a movie?" Victor asked. Oh my God. These people had literally never heard of a movie. Yuuri felt like the other kids at Mahoutokoro who came from wizarding families were less clueless than these guys. Nobody could possibly know _this_ little about the No-Maj world.

"A movie is like...like a picture," he explained. "Except it moves, and it tells a story, like—"

"So... a picture," Yurio grumbled. "I have plenty of pictures. Next."

Yuuri decided that explaining the appeal of movies was a lost cause.

"We could go ice skating," Yuuri suggested. "There's a rink—"

"What's ice skating?" Yurio asked. "Sounds lame."

And that was how Yuuri came to be standing at the counter of Ice Castle Hasetsu after lunch, trying to find skates for two people who didn't know what a shoe size was.

"Why don't these things just adjust to fit your feet?" Yurio complained, trying to force his foot into an obviously too-big skate. "Katsudon! Shrink this for me."

"I'm not shrinking your ice skates in front of No-Majs just because you don't know how small your feet are," Yuuri mumbled to him, hazarding a guess at Yurio's shoe size and asking the girl behind the counter for a smaller pair.

Yurio fell flat on his butt the instant his foot hit the ice and Yuuri watched as his face turned several shades of red. It was like standing next to a possibly live grenade and not being sure when or even if it might explode.

"I don't see how this could possibly be fun," Yurio gritted out.

Yuuri stepped confidently into the rink and turned to face them.

"Why didn't _you_ fall?" Yurio asked accusingly, as though it was Yuuri's fault that _he_ had.

"Yuuko and I have been coming here since we were kids," Yuuri told him. "I was pretty good, actually, and if I hadn't ended up going to Mahoutokoro, well..."

Victor stepped tentatively out onto the ice and immediately grasped Yuuri's arm for support.

"You guys have really never been ice skating?" Yuuri asked incredulously, lowering his voice. "Not even like...you know, a magical version? I thought you said Durmstrang was _freezing."_

"It is," Victor confirmed. "But no one at Durmstrang would know about this because they don't come from No-Maj families."

"You...you don't have any kids with No-Maj parents at Durmstrang?" Yuuri asked. He'd thought everyone had dropped that prejudice _decades_ ago.

"No," Yurio said, staggering as he attempted to stand on the skates. "All-magic families only."

Yuuri had assumed Victor's parents were a witch and wizard, but he'd had no idea that _this was Victor's first exposure to No-Majs ever._ It seemed crazy that someone could live that long without ever really setting foot outside the comparatively tiny magical community. Yuuri was all for the magical community in general—he intended to live the rest of his life with wizards, preferably in a town or city with at least a marginal magical population—but there were certainly things to be said about the No-Maj world. Like movies. And ice skating.

Victor slipped his arm through Yuuri's elbow.

"Show me," he said with a smile.

They spent the entire afternoon on the ice. Victor remained attached to Yuuri in one fashion or another the entire time—arms linked, holding hands, steadying himself by grasping Yuuri's forearm. Yurio wasted no opportunity to complain that this was boring, stupid, pointlessly difficult and painful, but he got the hang of it as the sun went down and they practically had to drag him away from the rink when it closed. It was only when they got home that Yuuri realized Yurio had _stolen_ the ice skates he'd been wearing all day.

"I paid for them," he insisted. "I left a galleon on the counter."

"No one here even knows what that is," Yuuri tried to explain to him.

But in the end Yuuri let him keep the skates, partly because of how embarrassing it would be to return them, but mostly because Yuuri was positive he was going to take them to Durmstrang and practice with them on the ice there, and would probably come back able to do a flying sitspin.

Yuuri was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day, but when he went to collapse on his futon, someone was already sitting there.

"Well, well, well," said Mari, pulling a cigarette out of her pocket. "You're home."

Yuuri smiled. She gave him a lot of shit, but his older sister was still one of his favorite people on the planet and he was grateful to her for waiting until it was quiet to come see him.

"Yeah," he said, flopping down onto the futon next to her. "Don't smoke in here."

She ignored him and pulled out a lighter. "So. Victor Nikiforov, huh?" In that moment, she reminded him very strongly of Minako.

"Yeah," Yuuri said again.

"I see you got rid of your shrine," she commented, looking around at the walls, which were now stripped bare of their usual Victor collage. "Guess you don't need it when you've got the real thing. Why isn't he sleeping in here with you?"

"Why would he?" Yuuri asked, making a face.

Then he realized. She thought—

"Oh," he corrected quickly. "No no, it's not like...it's..."

"You sleep in the same bedroom every night at school, he flew halfway across the world to 'mentor' you, whatever that means, and you brought him home to meet your family. It's not like _what?_ "

"I thought you said you were going to university this semester," Yuuri said, changing the subject on purpose.

"Clearly I didn't," she told him shortly, taking a drag off her cigarette. "Anyway, I only came in to say hi. I'm going to bed. Night."

If she was anyone else, Yuuri would've thought she was mad at him, but that was just the way Mari was. She closed the door to his bedroom behind her. He watched the trail of smoke curl into the air and slowly dissipate as the sound of her footsteps disappeared down the hallway.

Yuuri ran into a problem a few days later when he realized that Christmas was approaching because he _knew_ that it was Victor's birthday, but Victor had not actually _told_ him that, so he felt like they were in a loop of him knowing and Victor probably knowing that he knew but not confirming that he knew he knew. They were past the appropriate time for Victor to have dropped a hint that his birthday was coming up, which would have given Yuuri an opportunity to buy him a present. Yuuri became increasingly concerned as the days passed that Victor's birthday was just going to slip by, seemingly unnoticed by anyone.

"Don't, uh...don't ask me how I know this," Yuuri finally said on Christmas Eve, when he couldn't stand it anymore. "But tomorrow is your birthday and you hadn't said anything about it so— "

"I don't really celebrate it," Victor said casually, thankfully glossing over the fact that Yuuri could only have memorized it before they'd even met.

"Why not?" Yuuri asked.

Victor shrugged.

"Can I buy you a present anyway?"

Victor smiled. "How about katsudon for dinner? And maybe we could spend the day together?"

"We were going to do that anyway," Yuuri said. "As far as spending the day together...I'm not sure how you're planning on shaking off Yurio, but..."

"Yeah, he's probably not going to like that," Victor agreed.

"But his break ends earlier than ours," Yuuri reminded him. "We get five days at the end after he goes back to school."

There really was no getting rid of Yurio the next day. But Victor did get his katsudon dinner, and some No-Maj sake to go with it.

"Care for some?" he asked Yuuri, bottle hovering over Yuuri's glass.

"No thanks," Yuuri told him. "I try not to drink too much."

Victor gave him a very strange, very confused expression. "More for me then," he said, shaking off whatever it was and smiling again.

Yuuri put on a No-Maj movie for them after dinner—an old classic that he felt nobody could dislike: _Men in Black._ He was glad they hadn't brought Yurio to the theater because he shouted advice at the characters on screen non-stop and looked extraordinarily alarmed when the movie ended.

"Where did they go?" he demanded to know, shaking the television. "Bring them back."

"Bring them back? I mean..." Yuuri hesitated, not sure whether he should tell Yurio but... "there's a sequel."

When Yuuri finally collapsed onto his futon after _Men in Black II_ had ended, he flicked his wand at the light switch and was out in seconds.

Some time later, he wasn't sure how much, he felt shifting next to him and Victor crawled under the covers with him.

"Being here with you," Victor murmured in his ear, so sweetly it might've been a dream. "That's my birthday present."

Yuuri learned the next day that he might've made a mistake in showing Yurio the TV and the DVD player. He woke up early the next morning to Yurio storming into his room demanding more movies, which led to Yurio spending the rest of his time in Hasetsu bingeing on both okashi and Yuuri's entire collection of movies. Yuuri was very glad he hadn't gotten around to introducing Yurio to the internet—something told him that he'd have spent the rest of his long, wizarding life watching cat videos on YouTube if he had.

As soon as they'd organized Yurio's route home (two Portkeys, six Floo transfers, and a short broomstick ride back to Russia, then a ship to Durmstrang) and seen him off at his first Portkey, Victor turned to Yuuri and smiled.

"I guess it's just us for the next five days," he said, raising his eyebrows. "Any ideas of what you'd like to do?"

Unfortunately, not having Yurio as a paying guest to fawn over gave Yuuri's parents free rein to fawn over Yuuri. He realized that they didn't get to see him as often as they would've liked and he probably owed them his company, but all he kept hoping for was some quality time with Victor.

The last night before they were due back at Mahoutokoro, Victor got into bed with him again. Makkachin followed and plopped himself firmly in between them.

"Does Makkachin have any powers?" Yuuri asked as Makkachin began to drool on his pillow.

"No," Victor said fondly, scratching behind his ear. "I found him outside during a match when I was in the minor leagues. He must have wandered off from a No-Maj village nearby."

"Why not leave him at home with your parents then?" Yuuri asked. Victor spoke very, very little of his parents, and Yuuri was incredibly curious. He didn't want to pry, but apparently Victor was in the mood to share.

"They're not crazy about him," Victor admitted. "They told me they'd have been happy to find me a suitable magical pet but...when you meet someone you know you're meant to be with, you just have to go with it."

He smiled and looked into Yuuri's eyes over Makkachin's head.

"Yeah," Yuuri breathed. "I guess you do."

"That's my philosophy anyway."

"Tell me about your family," Yuuri whispered, as though saying it quietly would make it less rude to ask.

Victor furrowed his brows.

"Well, I'm an only child," he said. "My parents both come from a long line of proud wizarding families. They're not what you would call traditional 'blood supremacists' but they don't really care for No-Majs. They have a circle of influential friends, if you can call them friends. They're more like business associates. Yurio's mother is one of them. You'd think that since we're from Russia we'd have gone to Koldovstoretz instead of Durmstrang, but since Durmstrang is considered the more prestigious school and it only admits students from wizarding families, my parents made a generous donation and got me admitted. Yurio's mother did the same for him. I guess the best way to say it would be that we just have different priorities. They're supportive, but they don't always approve of everything I do."

"Do you think they'd approve of me?" Yuuri asked, before he could stop himself.

"Try to get some sleep," Victor responded. He reached over Makkachin to squeeze Yuuri's hand briefly. _That's a no, then,_ Yuuri thought. But he found he didn't really care—he was good enough for Victor, apparently, and that was more than he could've dreamed of.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**A/N:** Just a heads up for anyone who might need one: another panic attack is described in this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter Thirteen: Yuuri vs. His Old Friend Anxiety: Reality is Like a Bludger to the Face**

The journey back to school was glum, mostly because their break had gone by way too fast and for all the time they'd spent away from school, Yuuri felt like he understood Victor only marginally better as a person. Also partly because having to say goodbye to Makkachin clearly took something out of Victor physically—despite the fact that Yuuri's parents promised to take care of him until school let out. But in their first class back they received grades on a test they'd taken and Yuuri almost cried when he saw Victor's paper.

"Have you been studying on your own at all?" he'd whispered.

"Why do I need to?" Victor had asked. "I have Quidditch."

"Have you ever thought about what you're going to do with your life when your Quidditch career ends?" Yuuri asked with mounting horror.

The look on Victor's face made it obvious that a life beyond Quidditch had never even occurred to him. He just shrugged. Yuuri felt as though _he'd_ received the failing grade.

So Yuuri really insisted they buckle down on their studies. He quizzed Victor on wand movements and nonverbal spells during Quidditch practice and before bed and between classes. He asked Victor to talk to him about significant dates in magical history during meals. Victor usually looked _beyond_ bored whenever they did this, but he humored Yuuri because he said he didn't want Yuuri to "freak out" again like he had in class.

Victor let up a little on the Quidditch practice too because Yuuri wasn't going to be playing in a match until March—he assured Yuuri that they'd work back up to their normal rigorous schedule by the time March rolled around. January was Komainu versus Suzaku and Yurio turned up right on schedule the morning before the match.

"Did you want to practice dives with me before the match?" Victor asked Yurio at breakfast on Sunday morning. "We could get a few minutes in if we eat fast."

"No," Yurio said, snapping his gaze back to them from where it had drifted over to the Komainu section _again._ "Levsky found another Seeker. They put me back as a Beater because _apparently_ I was committing too many fouls as a Seeker."

"What did you do?" Yuuri asked. He was trying to imagine a scenario in which a Seeker would commit a foul and, having never seen it happen before, was coming up blank.

"I hit a Bludger back at the Valkyrie House Keeper and he was unconscious for a week," Yurio mumbled.

"How did you hit a Bludger without a bat?" Yuuri asked incredulously.

"I hit it _with_ a bat, stupid," Yurio told him, rolling his eyes. "Nikola was flying by so I borrowed his bat."

"Ah, I see," Yuuri replied, because honestly what else was there to say to that? He could imagine it in his mind's eye perfectly—Yurio snatching the bat from poor, unsuspecting Nikola (whoever that was) and just smashing a Bludger at the opposing Keeper for any real or perceived slight. That Keeper was probably lucky Yurio didn't skip the Bludger and just start wailing on him. Clearly there was only one position for Yurio, and Seeker wasn't it.

They made their way down to the pitch after breakfast.

"Are you going to make us all sit with Komainu again?" Victor asked Yurio.

"What?" Yurio snapped. "I didn't do that! I don't care where we sit."

"I tried to sit in the Tanuki section because, you know, that is my house— "

"Your house is Drekr House," Yurio muttered under his breath.

"—but you insisted— "

"Well I don't care," Yurio interrupted. "We can sit wherever you want today."

As if to prove his point, Yurio plopped down right next to Yuuko and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.

"Ohayo Mahoutokoro!" came Ruika's voice over the megaphone. "I hope you all had a pleasant break and— "

"Because we did!" Emiko added. "As I might've mentioned, Ruika and I went to see MAJIC 8 over the break in Seoul and they were— "

"Today's match is Komainu versus Suzaku! This match will determine first place in the standings— "

"There were dragon fireworks when they came out onstage, and they were riding on actual suzaku— "

"Okay, that was pretty cool," Ruika admitted. "I'd never seen a real suzaku before and they were _beautiful_ —but anyway, speaking of Suzaku— "

"Not as beautiful as Sung Choi, he was—" Emiko said.

"Moving on!" Ruika grabbed the megaphone back from Emiko, because Emiko was showing no signs of bringing the subject back around to the match. "The players are taking the field!"

The Komainu and Suzaku players shot toward their starting positions. The cheers from every section of the crowd was deafening—House Komainu were the defending champions, and Mahoutokoro had never seen a more dynamic team than in House Suzaku. Otabek had stopped at the center goalpost, and continued his vigil, silent and still amid all the noise.

The whistle blew, and the Snitch, Quaffle, and Bludgers were released in a flurry of red, gold, and black blurs. Yuuri, who had been sitting on the edge of his seat and ready to enjoy what was bound to be an exciting match, was soon sitting back, numbly staring at the display of sheer prowess. Every time Suzaku stole the Quaffle from the Komainu Chasers, there seemed nothing to stop them from scoring. And every time, Otabek was right there waiting for them, as if he had already known where they were headed before they did. And then Komainu Chasers would have the Quaffle for all of thirty seconds before it was back in Suzaku's hands.

The battle for the Snitch was just as intense. Ohashi and Park were locked in diving contests every few minutes. Ohashi's trademark weaving technique worked the first time in distracting Park, but she had planned for it every time since, always flying slightly left of the Snitch and Ohashi's path. Five minutes in, and she had nearly caught it—a Bludger hit hard from Fen Chiu had forced her to change course at the last minute. The score remained 0-0.

Almost as captivating was the battle for the megaphone. Emiko's attempt to retell every moment of her MAJIC 8 concert to a technically listening audience was constantly interrupted by Ruika, trying to explain the spellbinding match taking place.

"And then we shouted 'Encore' for like, the seventh time, and they did it again!" Emiko squealed, as Ruika lunged unsuccessfully for the megaphone.

"And you know when Sung Choi does that solo part? Well, when he started singing—"

A second lunge, and Ruika's voice rose suddenly above the crowd, "They've seen the Snitch! Seekers are rising together. Ohashi in the lead!"

But he was quickly losing ground. Park was just too small, she seemed to defy gravity in her relentless upward dive. In a moment, they were neck and neck. Ohashi swerved into her to cut her off. She flew left again, and Ohashi overshot. He took his hands off his broom and made a futile lunge for the Snitch and missed. Park soon caught up with Snitch, and with a triumphant smirk that Yuuri could see clearly in his Omnioculars, plucked it effortlessly from the air.

Victor was looking at him, Yuuri knew, so he willed his hands to stop trembling. _Stop stop stop, you look like such a spaz,_ he told himself, but the shaking continued.

"Yuuri..."

"Everything's fine," Yuuri said quickly, standing up and shoving his hands into his pockets.

 _God,_ they were good. So good. Like...unstoppable. He wasn't going to be playing them again until April, but even Komainu...Honestly, Yuuri wasn't sure if Tanuki could beat Komainu either.

By the time he managed to look up and over at Victor, Yurio had slipped away to God knows where. Yuuri didn't even have it in him to think about that too hard because his brain skipped right onto the slippery slope of doom: _thinking about the future._

Oh God oh God, he was going to lose. Tanuki would be slaughtered by Suzaku and maybe even by Komainu and they'd come in third this year and the Tengu would never, ever sign him...

Yuuri felt his vision tunneling and the worst part of all of this, even worse than the fact that his entire life was screwed, was that he was about to have a panic attack right in the stands in front of the whole school.

"Yuuri—"

Victor's voice sounded like it was coming from across the pitch, and his hand on Yuuri's shoulder—which should've been reassuring—felt like a lead weight. He heard the roaring in his ears and was struck with that overwhelming urge to flee somewhere, anywhere. He hid his face in his hands because at least on some level it was like if he couldn't see them, they couldn't see him.

Victor was steering him and his feet were moving, he wasn't sure where they were going but it didn't matter because no matter how far away he got, it wasn't far enough.

"Come on," Victor's voice came wafting through, and what felt like a million years later, they were on the shore.

"Whoops, not here—" Victor murmured. Yuuri heard distant cheering—the House Suzaku victory party.

When Yuuri took his shaking hands away from his face, it was just him, Victor, and the ocean rolling onto the shore. He sank into the sand on his knees and stared out at the horizon, trying to control his breathing. Victor stood still beside him, arms folded over his chest.

"I don't know how to help you," Victor admitted. "What can I do?"

Yuuri didn't have the presence of mind to give Victor a laundry list of things that could maybe possibly help him so he just shook his head.

"I'll just stay here," Victor said quietly. "Tell me if you need anything else."

Watching the push and pull of the tide seemed to actually be doing the trick, and Victor appeared to notice.

"Breathe in when the tide comes in," he instructed, "and out when it pushes away."

That, Yuuri thought, was a good idea.

 _In, out. In, out. In, out._

"What happened?" Victor asked, after Yuuri had stopped visibly shaking.

"I just..." Yuuri felt shame curling in his gut. He'd done everything within his power throughout his whole life not to let people see him like that, and then he'd just gone and fallen apart right in front of Victor.

"Yuuri?"

"They were really good. Komainu. Suzaku. Both of them," he whispered.

"And so are you," Victor told him calmly.

It was the tone of his voice more than his words that pulled Yuuri a little further out of it.

"How often does this happen to you?" Victor asked, squatting down in the sand next to him.

"Not too often," Yuuri said. "I... I had one earlier this year but..."

Victor nodded.

"I feel like I understand you a little better now," he said quietly, tracing in the sand with his finger. Yuuri watched the motions until he could tell what the drawing was. A raccoon face. He smiled in spite of himself.

"Sorry—"

"Don't apologize," Victor cut him off.

"Okay."

"We're going to take a nap now," Victor announced, and Yuuri didn't have it in him to argue as he was marched off to the dormitory. Once in bed, Victor curled up behind him and Yuuri was so exhausted that he had no trouble drifting off. When they woke up, Victor dragged him into the onsen and they spent most of the afternoon soaking.

Yuuri learned at dinner that Victor was apparently the only one who had noticed anything was amiss because his team was chatting like nothing had happened.

"—felt like I was watching a pro match," Phichit was saying. "That was amazing!"

"We are going to get our asses handed to us," Seung-gil commented.

"Thanks for the support," Yuuko told him. "We're just going to have to practice harder."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen: Yuuri vs. The Commentator of the Century: Yurio Takes the Mic!**

January blended seamlessly into February. House Suzaku absolutely slaughtered House Kirin in their Valentine's Day match, at least from what Yuuri heard from his teammates later because Victor didn't even allow him to attend. The two of them spent that morning flying on the other side of the island, Victor doing impossible tricks on his broom and trying to goad Yuuri into copying him.

"You just grasp the handle and..." Victor swung all the way around on the broomstick like a windmill.

"I can't do that!" Yuuri told him, laughing.

"I don't believe you for a second," Victor said. Yuuri just shook his head.

March brought with it the dreaded prospect of the match with Komainu. Yuuri's nerves mounted with every passing day until...

"Yuuri?" Victor whispered.

"Yes?" Crap. He shouldn't have responded. Now Victor would know he'd been awake, tossing and turning for...

"Your match is in five hours."

"Yes, I know that. Thank you, Victor," Yuuri snapped. Oops.

Victor didn't respond, and for a second Yuuri thought he was angry. Then he heard the creak of Victor's futon and footsteps as he crept over to Yuuri's bed. He laid down behind Yuuri and placed a warm arm around his waist, snuggling him close.

"Don't worry," Victor murmured. "Sleep in a little. I've done that before matches too."

Yuuri was out like a light in an instant.

"Time to wake up!" Victor sat on the edge of his bed and shook him gently on the shoulder. Yuuri just groaned. He'd slept wonderfully once Victor was in the bed, but it still wasn't as good as a full night of uninterrupted rest.

Yuuri ate breakfast in silence despite Victor's gentle, prodding questions, and got up to go to the pitch very, very slowly. The rest of the team was ahead of them when Victor stopped him in his tracks then hauled him off to the side into a small enclosure of trees. Yuuri stared at Victor for a moment, then began to stretch as Victor just...watched. _What is he doing?_ Yuuri thought.

"It's almost time to get started, we better go," Yuuri said, stepping out of the trees and toward the cliff.

"It's at least partially my fault if you mess up today," Victor told him thoughtfully. Yuuri stopped in his tracks and turned around to face Victor.

"If you don't win, I'll take responsibility and resign from training you."

The words were like a sucker punch to the gut and maybe two months ago, Yuuri would have fallen into a sobbing heap on the ground upon hearing them. The tears still came, thick and fast even now. But he wasn't sure why—he couldn't really grasp how he was feeling. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't fear.

"Victor, why would you say something like that? Like you're testing me?" he gasped. His voice came out watery but he ignored it. His shoulders shook as he attempted to control his breath.

Victor seemed to immediately realize that he'd made a huge mistake. He stepped cautiously toward Yuuri, arms out in an expression of placation.

"Look Yuuri," he said softly, "I wasn't being serious, I'm sorry— "

"I've failed a lot," Yuuri bit out, "so I've gotten pretty used to it. But it's different now because I'm worried about my mistakes reflecting on _you!_ Part of me has been wondering if you secretly want to quit— "

"I was just saying that," Victor told him calmly. "Of course I don't want to— "

"I KNOW!" Yuuri shouted through his tears—and that's when he grasped it. Anger. Yuuri was _angry._ He knew from the moment he said it that Victor didn't actually mean he was going to leave, and that made it even worse. Their...whatever it was...friendship, for lack of a better word, was so obviously no longer based on Quidditch mentoring that the idea that Victor would use it as a leverage tool to try and get a rise out of Yuuri was infuriating. Yuuri attempted to heave in a full breath between sobs.

"I'm not very good with people crying," Victor said. _Well whoop-de-freaking-do, Victor. I'm not crazy about me crying either, but here we are and guess whose fault_ that _is?_

"I don't know what to say in this situation. Should I just kiss you or something?"

"No," Yuuri said firmly, because at the moment he would've preferred slapping Victor to kissing him. "Just have more faith that I'm going to win than I do! You don't have to say anything, just stay close to me, Victor."

Victor's gaze softened at that. Yuuri was still mad enough that he was pretty sure nothing nice could come out of his mouth at the moment, so he wiped his streaming eyes and stalked off to join his team at the edge of the cliff.

"Are you okay?" Yuuko asked him immediately. "You look like you've been crying! What happened?"

Yuuri remembered the "oh shit" look on Victor's face when he'd started to tear up and smirked to himself.

"Nothing, I'm fine," he assured her. His smile seemed to convince her—she just patted him on the back and mounted her broomstick.

"Ohayo, Mahoutokoro!" came Emiko's voice. "White Day is going to be on Tuesday and I hope you've all bought gifts for your boyfriends! I know I got something special for—oh, right. I should tell you that Ruika isn't here today. Her Potions project blew up in her face this morning and she's at the nurse right now. They promised that they'd have her lips back to normal in no time, but for the moment she can't speak so today it's just me! Anyway, back to White Day, I have..."

There was a scuffling, then an earsplitting feedback noise from the megaphone. Yuuri squinted toward the commentator's box and watched as someone from the stands climbed into it, wrestling the megaphone from Emiko. He'd recognize that leopard-print bomber jacket anywhere.

"No," came Yurio's voice. "I can't listen to this chick for an entire match. It's bad enough when it's her _and_ her sister."

Apparently, Yurio didn't feel that it was necessary to announce who he was. Yuuri was certain everyone had seen him around—he was distinctive-looking (not to mention loud) enough that he was difficult to miss, but as far as Yuuri knew, he hadn't actually interacted with anyone outside the House Tanuki Quidditch team. Oh, other than the time he shouted across the shokudou at Otabek Altin.

When no one challenged Yurio's coup in the commentator's box, Yuuri took to the air with the rest of his team.

"Okay, here we go. The Quaffle is released and it's caught by that annoying friend of Katsudon's with the ponytail. She passes it to that short kid, but he drops it because he's incompetent and it's caught by that Komainu Chaser with the terrible hair—I don't know who he thinks he's fooling with those highlights—and he passes to the guy with the really thick glasses."

Yuuri had cried _after_ matches plenty of times (especially last year's final) but he'd never cried _before_ one and he had to admit, he felt a lot better for it. He was still sort of angry at Victor though. What had he been thinking? Yuuri chalked it up to his inexperience with being a leader and pep talks—despite his skill, he'd never even been a team captain, let alone a coach.

"—the Komainu Seeker looks like he's lost, he's just floating around like he doesn't know how he got here. Even Katsudon is paying more attention and he's barely moved."

Yuuri had never had so much trouble tuning out the commentary of a match. Equal parts hilarious and insulting, Yurio continued to unintentionally (or intentionally—it was always hard to tell with Yurio) roast every player until—

"—and that irritating perky boy who hangs out with Katsudon is within scoring range but Otab—Alt—the...the..."

Yuuri smiled in spite of himself because this was the first person who Yurio had almost accidentally referred to by name and apparently, he couldn't find anything awful to say about him.

"—the Keeper for Komainu blocks it easily. He kicks the Quaffle into the arms of the guy with the bad hair, and he immediately loses it to that Tanuki girl. What the hell is wrong with him? No one has scored a single goal against Komainu all year. Altin's Keeper talents are wasted on this loser team—he should transfer to Durmstrang and play for Drekr House. He could replace our idiot Keeper and— "

Yurio stopped cold—it seems he felt he'd said too much. Yuuri happened to be close enough to the commentary box to see that he was blushing. He then looked over at Otabek Altin, who gave no indication that he had noticed.

"—and we're twenty minutes into this game. God, it feels like forever. No one has even come close to losing a limb from a Bludger. That big-ass guy who is always hanging around Katsudon's ponytail friend could knock someone out with his fist better than his bat, his aim is terrible."

Yuuri chanced a glance toward Takeshi, who was scowling at the commentator's box. Yuuri hoped that Yurio wouldn't be throwing any more insults that way, because he suspected that Takeshi might use Yurio's nose to prove how good his aim really was.

After three more attempts, the Tanuki Chasers had been unable to put the Quaffle past Otabek. Komainu scored the first goal off of a complete fluke; Seung-gil aimed a Bludger at Legaspi who screamed and threw wildly—right through the right goalpost.

"Ugh, this is ridiculous. That Keeper from Tanuki can't even defend the goal against accidental throws, so I'm not even going to say the Chasers did a good job. This goal was a fluke. 10-0 Komainu."

The match resumed. Yuuko and the other Tanuki Chasers were taking bigger risks, desperate to find an opening in Komainu's defense. Twice, Phichit got hit with Bludgers, one almost full in the face. He was sporting a black eye now, and was slumped slightly on his broom, but refused Yuuko when she told him to sit out. Yuuko seemed to realize she needed all the help she could get—the score was now 40-0.

Despite the perfect weather, Yuuri couldn't find the Snitch. Once he thought he saw a golden shimmer, but it was just the reflection of one of the goalposts on the water. Ohashi was likewise getting nowhere. He was now tailing Yuuri wherever he went, and seemed to have given up on finding the Snitch himself. That not only annoyed Yuuri, but also forced him to remember the last time he had played Ohashi, and the embarrassing results of that match.

He felt a hot surge of anger again, and thought of his argument with Victor. Seriously, what had Victor been _thinking?_ This was as bad as the first time they practiced and Yuuri ended up smashing into the cliff. And then he was struck with a sudden idea.

Yuuri dived suddenly, and Ohashi followed. He skimmed the surface of the waves and swerved to the left. Ohashi did the same. He sped as fast as he could toward the Kirin section of the stands, which was closest. Ohashi was slower, but again did likewise.

Yuuri was now seconds away from the stands, remembering now his match with Kirin. He made as though he was going to pin the Snitch against the rock pillars again, but turned sharply and ascended at the last possible second. Ohashi hadn't planned for that—he had been so busy trying to speed up and block Yuuri off, he didn't have time to stop. He jumped off of his broom as it hit the rock, and into the water. He was only a few feet from the water, and so easily rose again to the surface, but his broom was out of reach. Without a rider, and plainly offended at being abandoned, it zoomed away across the pitch, heedless of Ohashi shouts and curses.

"That was the dumbest move I've ever seen," Yurio declared. "I knew what Katsudon was doing like ten years ago and this loser didn't even see it when that cliff was right in front of his face. Even his broom doesn't want to be seen with him anymore—"

And there it was: in the exact center of the pitch, as if it was waiting for him. Yuuri darted for the Snitch, and snatched it easily from the air.

"Well, Katsudon catches the Snitch because that other Seeker is still floating around in the water somewhere, probably. Despite the fact that they've got the best Keeper in the school, the rest of the Komainu team can't seem to hold it together enough to use that to their advantage. Anyway, the final score is 150-50 Tanuki. You're welcome for not having to listen to that girl talk about her boyfriend or whatever for an hour and a half."

And with that, he stood up, dropped the megaphone on the floor and climbed out of the box. Emiko stared after him as though she'd never seen anyone so incredible in her life—Yuuri could almost see Sung Choi of MAJIC 8 being wiped from her mind and replaced with a swirl of leopard prints and blond hair.

Yuuri searched the stands for Victor, but didn't see him. Had...had he not even watched the match?

And then Yuuri spotted him, standing on the cliff side. He must've spent the whole match alone up there. Yuuri zoomed toward him and Victor stepped back, allowing him space to land.

A million thoughts raced through his head as he stumbled off his broomstick, eyes never leaving Victor's. Victor was inscrutable—he stood with his hands to his sides, his expression unreadable, eyes shining. Yuuri wasn't sure whether he was going to continue their argument, or tell him he did well, or start giving him tips on how to improve or what, exactly. But there was blood pumping hard in Yuuri's veins, and if someone had come back to that moment with a Time Turner and asked him how he knew, he couldn't have said, but he did know without a shadow of a doubt that something _wonderful_ was about to happen.

Despite that, Yuuri didn't expect for Victor to launch himself forward and kiss him, and it didn't really register that that's what was going to happen until their lips had met and his back had hit the ground, Snitch tumbling out of his hand. Victor braced himself on his forearms over Yuuri without breaking the kiss, letting it linger for just a moment.

Yuuri could've happily stayed that way indefinitely. Victor's lips were warm and soft and Yuuri felt utterly surrounded by him—joyous and triumphant in his victory, and perfectly content in Victor's arms. Yuuri placed a hand on the back of Victor's neck, drawing Victor in and letting his emotions wash over him like waves.

At last, Victor pulled back just enough that their lips were no longer touching.

"I wanted to surprise you more than you surprised me," he whispered. "This was the only thing I could think of."

"Well," Yuuri whispered back, "it worked."


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen: Yuuri vs. Lightning: Sometimes Survival is Victory!**

Yuuri wasn't sure if anyone else had seen what had happened on the cliff side, but he was prepared to have to talk about it with every person at Mahoutokoro if they had. Emiko came up to him at dinner blushing furiously and leaving behind a gaggle of eight or nine other girls watching intently, and Yuuri steeled himself.

"Um, hi," he told her cautiously.

"You're Yuuri Katsuki, right?" she asked, biting her lower lip. Had she or had she not been commentating his matches for the last three years?

"Yes..."

"I was just wondering. You know the boy who commentated the match today?"

"Yurio?" Victor replied for him.

"Is that his name?!" Emiko squealed.

"Yuri Plisetsky," Yuuri corrected, because he had the strong impression that this information was going to get out and Yurio was _not_ going to be pleased if the entire student body caught on to his nickname.

"Yurio, got it," she said. "Could you maybe introduce me the next time he comes here?"

And without even waiting for an answer, she buried her face in her hands and escaped back into her throng of friends, all of them giggling like hyenas.

Yuuri found himself bombarded at the most bizarre times with requests for information about Yurio—from a girl during study hall asking about Yurio's birthday (Yuuri didn't know that one) to one popping up in the onsen inquiring after Yurio's favorite animal (he had to assume it was some kind of cat) and, strangest of all, a girl flying up during Quidditch practice to ask if Yurio had a girlfriend (Yuuri felt reasonably certain by this point that Yurio was _not_ interested in girls, but he was keeping that information to himself.)

"You'll have to ask him yourself next time he's here," Yuuri told her flatly, and she flew back to the ground looking slump-shouldered. Yuuri hoped she had the sense not to actually do that because Yurio would probably take a swing at her if she did.

Yuuri's good mood over winning the match against Komainu lasted well over two weeks, which was a lot longer than usual and probably prolonged by the fact that Victor kissed him _oh my God._ Yuuri got butterflies in his stomach every time he so much as thought about it, and he found himself gazing dreamily out the window during classes and smiling into his pillow after saying goodnight to Victor, replaying the moment over and over in his head the way he had after the time Victor had winked at him during the World Cup. That times a thousand because by Yuuri's estimation, being kissed by your idol was at least a thousand time better than being winked at by him.

Victor behaved exactly the same toward him as he had before it happened—flirty, affectionate, kind—so Yuuri decided the kiss had been a reward—an excellent one, but he didn't expect it to happen again, and honestly he figured he could die happy based on that one kiss alone.

Eventually though, the looming match against Suzaku overshadowed Yuuri's happiness, like drops of anxiety falling into a dry well until he realized he was drowning in worry.

"Anything I might be able to do to help take your mind off things, hm?" Victor asked one morning, two days before the match, when the bags under Yuuri's eyes gave away the fact that he was panicking.

"Uh, not that I can think of," Yuuri told him.

"I'm sure I could come up with something," Victor suggested, eyebrows raised.

"Actually, yes," Yuuri said. Victor's entire face lit up and he wiped his mouth with his napkin.

"Really? Then let's go back up to the dormitory, we can skip Defensive— "

"Wait, what?" Yuuri asked, confused. "I was going to suggest a soak in the onsen after Herbology."

Victor sucked in a breath like he was going to say something.

"You really shouldn't be skipping classes," Yuuri told him.

"Okay, if that's what you think will help," Victor sighed, smiling patiently once again.

The next morning, Yuuri and Victor were running drills on the pitch as usual, waiting for the Durmstrang ship to rise up out of the waves. Oddly, the shore was dotted with people—usually it would be empty at this time of day. Yuuri swooped down to get a closer look and—oh no.

The entirety of the Yuri Plisetsky Fan Club (who, Yuuri was horrified to learn, had begun referring to themselves as Yuri's Angels), led by Emiko, stood nervously awaiting Yurio's arrival.

"Victor!" Yuuri called nervously.

"What is it?" Victor flew down closer.

"Look." Yuuri pointed at the girls. Victor squinted.

"Are they wearing cat ears?" he asked.

Before Yuuri could answer, the mast of the Durmstrang ship crashed through the waves.

"It's him!" the girls squealed, jumping up and down like they were on springs. Oh _no._

Yuuri and Victor could only watch helplessly as the ship docked on the shore and Yurio descended the ramp, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, hair pulled back into a bun.

"Yurio!" the girls screeched once he'd reached the shore and the ramp had pulled itself back up into the ship. Yurio's head snapped up and he stared at them in confused horror.

Yuuri watched it happen as if in slow-motion, the girls flocking toward Yurio, giggling and shrieking, Yurio backing up and glancing behind him as if he'd realized that the only way out was to dive into the ocean and start swimming.

And then something even weirder happened—Otabek Altin flew up on his broom out of absolutely nowhere, stopping beside Yurio. Yuuri really couldn't remember seeing that much of him on weekends, but he was wearing a leather jacket, his hair was whipping in the wind, and he looked like the most badass No-Maj motorcycle punk Yuuri could imagine. They exchanged a few words, Yurio flushed and glanced in terror at his fan club, then he swung a leg over the back of Otabek's broomstick and wrapped his arms around Otabek's waist. Otabek wasted no time in taking off, bulleting in the direction of the other side of the island.

"Aw man," Yuuri heard one of the girls say.

"Well that was interesting," Victor commented, elbow propped up on his broomstick and his chin resting in his hand. "Let's get back to that dive."

They didn't see Yurio again for the rest of the morning.

"Okay guys," Yuuko was saying at lunch, "I know we've talked strategy before, but—"

"What does it matter?" Seung-gil interrupted. "This is a waste of time. Our chances of winning are negligible at best. I see no purpose in going over tactics we can't execute."

"Always the ray of sunshine," Takeshi said, clapping Seung-gil so forcefully on the back that he spat out his gulp of tea. Yuuri privately thought it was probably a good thing that Takeshi was graduating this year because one more season of having to team up with Seung-gil might have ended in some unforgivable curses.

Just then, Yuuri noticed that Yurio hadn't shown up for lunch. It wasn't katsudon, but still.

"Where's Yurio?" he asked Victor. Victor shrugged. Where could he have even gone? Yuuri craned his neck to look at the shokudou. Everyone seemed to be there except Yurio and...oh.

"I don't see the Otabek either," Yuuri whispered to Victor. Victor's eyes widened and his hand flew up to clap over his mouth.

"Oh! Do you think—"

They didn't have time to dwell on this development before Yuuko had roped them back into a discussion about tactics over Seung-gil's protests.

"So then Guang Hong will come around—is that a crow?"

Indeed, a crow had landed in one of the doorways outside the shokudou and began honking so loudly Yuuri's ears were ringing. He was closest to the doorway, so he got up and reached out for the letter it was carrying. It was addressed to Victor, but in Mari's handwriting.

"It's for you," he said, handing Victor the letter. "But it looks like it's from my sister."

Yuuri read the letter over Victor's shoulder.

 _Victor,_

 _Makkachin got into the steamed buns and one got lodged in his throat. We've taken him to the vet and they're doing everything they can for him, but they're not sure if he's going to make it. I'm really sorry. I'm including the address for the vet if the school will let you out. If not, we'll send updates if anything changes._

— _Mari_

Yuuri glanced up at Victor's face, which had drained noticeably of color. Yuuri understood—Victor was an only child. He didn't fit in with his parents. Makkachin was his family.

"Go," Yuuri told him.

"But your match—"

"I can do it alone," Yuuri said, nodding firmly. "You need to get back to Hasetsu."

"I can't just leave—"

"You can, and you have to. Makkachin is your family. Go."

Victor squeezed his hand.

"I'll be back as soon as I can." And then he disappeared out of the shokudou.

Phichit came up behind Yuuri and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you going to be okay competing without Victor?"

"I guess I'll have to be," Yuuri sighed.

That night was _awful._ Yuuri hadn't realized how accustomed he'd grown to having Victor in the next bed, listening to Victor's deep, even breathing to anchor himself and drifting off to the sound. It was just too quiet, too still, too lonely. He got up. He paced. He tried to do homework. He laid back down. He watched the shadows of animals from outside on the shoji of his sliding door as they passed the window.

But the most important thing he did was accept the fact that he was almost _certainly_ going to lose. Even at the top of his game—with a full night's rest and Victor by his side, victory was unlikely at best.

Rolling over onto his stomach, he started tallying up totals in his head, which was something he'd successfully avoided thinking about all year. Losing one more match would not disqualify them. It would solidify Suzaku's position in the final match, but if Komainu beat Kirin next month— _let's face it,_ Yuuri thought to himself, _that's what's going to happen_ —then there would have to be a tiebreaker match between Tanuki and Komainu to determine who would face Suzaku in the final round. Beating Komainu again would be...difficult, not impossible. And mostly up to Yuuri. No one had scored a goal against Otabek Altin yet and Yuuri doubted that was going to change, so it would be once again down to him catching the Snitch before Komainu's Chasers could get too many goals past Mitsumi...

Yuuri didn't notice himself drifting off to sleep until Takeshi opened his screen door.

"Aren't you up yet?!" he asked. "I couldn't get past Victor's suitcases but I thought you'd be up by now; you're going to miss breakfast!"

Yuuri jolted upright, taking in the sunlight streaming into his room. He was so used to Victor waking him up on game days that he'd completely forgotten to set an alarm. Victor, with his sweet voice and soft hands, stroking Yuuri's hair out of his face and handing him his glasses...Yuuri missed him so much already that he _ached._

There was a letter waiting for him when he finally dressed and entered the shoin.

 _Dear Yuuri,_

 _Makkachin is going to be alright, thank God. I'm staying with him until tonight, but I'll be back in time for classes tomorrow morning._

 _Love,_

 _Victor_

Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief—it felt silly to admit but after just a couple weeks around Makkachin, Yuuri felt as if he was _their_ dog. He never would've admitted that to Victor though.

"How's everything?" Phichit asked nervously.

"Fine," Yuuri told him, which was at least partially true. "Victor will be back tomorrow morning."

"Great!" Phichit said. "Now let's go win this match!"

Oh, Phichit.

Yuuri wasn't sure whether he was relieved or annoyed that Yurio didn't have breakfast with him. It might've been a nice distraction to have Yurio yammering in his ear or even doing his sulking thing which always seemed noisy even if he wasn't speaking. Either way, he was apparently eating breakfast with Otabek Altin over at the Komainu table. They were sitting across from each other and talking and—Yuuri craned his neck—Yurio looked... _happy._ Happier than Yuuri had ever seen him, in fact. He was listening to Otabek talk (Yuuri had been certain up until this point that Otabek never spoke) with an exceptionally becoming flush spread across his cheeks and even the faintest hint of a smile. _I know that look,_ Yuuri thought.

It was lightly drizzling that morning, and Yuuri had the absolutely ridiculously sappy thought that Mahoutokoro was pining for Victor the same way he was. _Oh well,_ he thought, pulling off his glasses and casting a water-repelling charm on them, _here goes nothing._

"Welcome back, Mahoutokoro, to another Quidditch match! I'm glad to be back alongside Emiko after my little Potions mishap—"

"—which turned out to be all for the best! Last match, as most of you probably now know, was commentated by none other than Yuri Plisetsky, our special guest from Durmstrang and an amazing Beater!"

Yuuri glanced over at Yurio, who was sitting in the Komainu section of the stands. He had an elbow resting on Otabek's shoulder. It was a casual enough position, but he reminded Yuuri strikingly of a possessive cat curled around its owner, ready to bite anyone who got too close. At present though, his expression was of mingled disgust and confusion, glaring daggers at Emiko over in the commentator's box.

"The players take to the pitch! House Suzaku, fan-favorite and first place team, will be facing House Tanuki, who had a bit of a rocky start but have performed admirably due to star Seeker Yuuri Katsuki!"

Yuuri took his place high above the pitch opposite Minjae Park and the rest of Suzaku.

"The Snitch and Bludgers are released. The whistle is blown, and there's the Quaffle. The game—!"

The end of Ruika's sentence was drowned by a sudden and torrential downpour. The light drizzle had instantaneously morphed into what felt like a bath faucet from the sky. Thunder boomed ominously as lightning flashed a few miles away. Yuuri was glad for the waterproof charm on his glasses, but even with it, the thick curtain of rain was difficult to see through.

Yuuri descended rapidly—he didn't want to be too high when the thunderhead reached the pitch. Park seemed to have thought the same. The difficulty of finding the Snitch, though, increased as Yuuri now had to dodge the Chasers in their war for the Quaffle. Yuuko, Guang Hong, and Phichit seemed especially determined to score after their fruitless struggle against Komainu in the last match.

Yuuko stole the Quaffle from Yoshida, ducking under her and punching it out from her grasp. She managed to dodge a Bludger from Otgonbayar, but was blocked by Wang. She and Guang Hong had practiced for this, however. She dropped the Quaffle, seemingly to avoid crashing into Wang, but Phichit was right below her.

He caught it, and swerving to the right, threw it hard at the nearest goalpost. The Keeper, Matsumoto, had less than a second to react, and her fingers barely grazed the Quaffle as it soared past her, scoring the first goal for Tanuki.

A few minutes past, and for the first time that season, Suzaku was actually _losing._ The score was 30-20 in Tanuki's favor. Even the wind was in Tanuki's favor, blowing in the direction of the Suzaku goalposts. Both Yuuri and Park were sticking close to the Tanuki side of the field, the better to see more of the pitch without staring into the oncoming storm. Lightning flashed every couple of minutes, getting closer all the while. Yuuri had never played in weather so bad.

He noticed it a fraction of a second before Park. The Snitch was a good fifty feet above them, fighting the wind and rain as it flew. He and Park ascended as one, spiraling to keep abreast of the wind and out of each other's wake. Yuuri had seen Park's ascent from afar, how she practically dived upward, but he was happy to see that this time, the rain was slowing her down at least as much as him. The Snitch disappeared into a heavy cloud as lightning struck inches from where Yuuri and Park had just been. The storm was upon them, and there was no choice but to meet it, head on.

The darkness around him tingled with energy as he looked around frantically for the Snitch. His sense of self-preservation was slowly overcoming his drive to win, until he caught sight of Park, also searching in the cloud. No one would know if he simply let her catch it. They were effectively invisible up here.

But it wasn't about the other students now. It wasn't even about Victor, miles away in Hasetsu. This was about himself, Yuuri, finding the Snitch and winning the match for his team.

As if in answer, the Snitch appeared less than ten feet away from him. He sped up, but felt a sudden buzz of electricity all around him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, threatening to jump ship altogether. With a sudden instinct he didn't totally understand, he dived. There was a deafening explosion as a bolt of lightning shot overhead. He had moved just in time.

As he looked back, he saw Park, who had turned with shock at the lightning blast, speeding to the Snitch. She grabbed at it, and spiraled down as a second bolt blasted its way towards her. She and Yuuri both dived once more, out of the cloud, and down to the pitch. Once out of the cloud, the House Suzaku fans roared with delight.

It was the first time Yuuri could remember not even being upset about losing—truthfully, he was just glad to be alive. He tumbled off of his broom onto the muddy cliff side and was immediately enveloped into a crushing hug by Yuuko.

"Are you hurt?" she shouted in his ear, trying to make her voice heard over the rain. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Oh my God," Phichit said, wrapping his arms around Yuuri as soon as Yuuko let go. "We thought you were done for. We saw you go into the cloud but it was too hard to tell if you'd come out— "

"Don't scare us like that again, man!" Takeshi told him. "You're too stubborn for your own good—I wouldn't've gone anywhere near that cloud."

Yuuri was at least as glad to see them. He looked down and noticed that the hem of his Quidditch robes had been singed black by lightning.

He didn't fully understand it himself, but his need to affirm that he'd made it back to the ground and was alive and surrounded by the people he cared about was overwhelming. He saw Guang Hong first, pulled him forward and hugged him tight.

"Wha— "

Seung-gil was next—he looked as though he was about to vomit. Yuuri didn't have time to think about it too hard before he was hugging Phichit again, then Yuuko, then Takeshi and Mitsumi.

"What's going on up here? Do you losers just like standing around in the rain or— "

He had to physically chase him down, but in the end Yuuri got a hug from Yurio too.

The rest of the day was spent firmly indoors, drinking hot tea in his pajamas and reading quietly in the shoin with Phichit.

Everyone else went to bed early, but Yuuri knew that sleep wouldn't come until he'd seen Victor so he remained curled up in the pillows in the shoin with his History of Magic textbook until he heard footsteps outside the dormitory.

Not caring how it would look, Yuuri sprang up and waited just inside the doorway for the approaching footsteps, staring at the doorknob as it turned.

He was in Victor's arms before he could even take a full breath. Victor had brought with him a faint whiff of Hasetsu and Yuuri clung to his shoulders so tight his hands felt numb.

"You're back," he whispered.

"Mm," Victor agreed, brushing his lips against Yuuri's so softly it was like being kissed by the wind. "I'm home."


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen: Yuuri vs. The Unstoppable and Immovable Force that Is Otabek Altin**

As Yuuri predicted, Komainu absolutely decimated Kirin, knocking them permanently out of the running out of the cup. This meant that in two weeks, House Tanuki would face Komainu in a tiebreaker match to determine who would face Suzaku in the finals.

Yuuri felt like the tiebreaker was almost more of a test than the final match because scouts from the Toyohashi Tengu always attended the final match, so even if he made it to the final and they lost, as long as _he_ was good he stood a chance. But losing the tiebreaker meant he was completely out—the recruiters wouldn't even see him play.

Victor seemed to feel that since they'd already beaten Komainu, Yuuri had nothing to worry about. They practiced, but Victor was obviously more interested in trying to keep Yuuri happy than focused—which was confusing but not unpleasant.

The night before the match, he headed off Yuuri's nervous breakdown with a surprise.

"What are we doing?" Yuuri asked. Victor shut the sliding door behind them and began rummaging through his suitcases.

"I thought I put it in this one but—nope, more robes," he murmured, unzipping a second one. Yuuri waited patiently, sitting on his futon. "Okay, I can't find it. _Accio_ _gramophone!"_

A very, very small but intricate gramophone sailed out of one of Victor's other suitcases and landed in the palm of his hand. Victor set it on the floor on the other side of Yuuri's bed, tapped it with his wand and it instantly grew to full size, knocking into Yuuri's futon and wobbling dangerously on its spindly legs. The needle was poised at the ready on a record. Victor tapped it again, apparently oblivious to the fact that it appeared ready to tip over at any moment.

 _Can you hear my heartbeat...?_

Victor came over to the other side of the bed and held out his hands to Yuuri, who took them. Victor pulled him close, standing together in the space between their beds.

. _..I close my eyes and tell myself that my dreams will come true..._

Victor placed one of his hands on Yuuri's back and held Yuuri's other hand up. There was no finesse to it—Yuuri wasn't exactly an experienced dancer—but there was the natural grace expected of two Seekers, swaying and twirling together to the music.

 _...Don't stop us now, the moment of truth..._

Victor smiled and his face radiated with warmth and joy. He pulled Yuuri closer, and Yuuri rested his chin on Victor's shoulder.

 _...We were born to make history..._

"I like this song," Yuuri murmured in Victor's ear.

"I know," Victor replied. Yuuri could hear the smile in his voice.

Yuuri had no idea how Victor could know that Yuuri liked a song he'd never heard before, but it was impossible to keep thinking about things that didn't make sense, because _this_ did. The way they held each other, the way they danced together. He pulled back and looked Victor in the eyes, and that was the moment that Yuuri realized he was _in love_ —the deep, hopeless kind. He was drowning in it, and Victor was no longer some kind of unreachable dream. Victor, the real Victor, was the warm hand against Yuuri's palm. He was the heartbeat pulsing softly in his neck, the blue eyes under pale lashes with their gaze fixed on Yuuri's mouth. So Yuuri kissed him, because he couldn't not—and then Victor was the lips touching his, the tongue in his mouth, the hand firm on his lower back...

The sliding door opened and Yuuri pulled away from Victor with a gasp. He stumbled backwards and fell sprawling onto his futon—balling up his blanket and slamming it down onto his lap.

"Could you turn the music down?" Seung-gil demanded, poking his head into the room. "Some of us are trying to strategize for the game tomorrow. By all means, keep making out—just be quiet about it."

"Sorry!" Victor told him cheerfully. He waved his wand at the gramophone, which shrunk back to pocket-sized as the music ground to a halt. The appearance of Seung-gil was like a bucket of ice water poured over Yuuri's body, he took a deep breath and glanced nervously up at Victor. He knew he must've looked like a deer in the headlights, but Victor just laughed.

"So much for that!" he said, shrugging off the awkwardness. "You should probably get some sleep. We'll get up early tomorrow and stretch in the onsen before the game. That should help loosen you up."

"Right," Yuuri murmured, cheeks burning. He got into his futon and turned the light out, but he couldn't help wondering what might've happened if Seung-gil hadn't walked in. They'd been pressed _so_ tightly together, it would've taken just a couple of steps to fall back onto one of the beds… He stayed up much later than he would've admitted to watching Victor's sleeping face by the moonlight streaming through the window.

The next morning after breakfast and on their way down to the pitch, Victor got roped into a conversation with Yakov about "next season", which was probably Yuuri's least-favorite topic to think about. Every chance he got, Yakov brought up Victor's plans for post-graduation, whether he'd be returning to Russia, re-signing with the Skrzak, playing for the national team again—and every time he did it Victor waved him off with expertly diplomatic avoidant answers.

Yuuko was refereeing a disagreement between Takeshi and Seung-gil, and Mitsumi was talking to Guang Hong, who was staring into the sky and didn't appear to be taking in a word she was saying.

This left Yuuri free to talk with Phichit undisturbed for a few minutes, which was an opportunity he'd been seeking for weeks.

"I'm sorry I haven't spent as much time with you as usual this year," he started. "I just realized a couple weeks ago that I'll be leaving and you'll be staying, so..."

"Hey, no harm done!" Phichit said, smiling. This was what he loved so much about Phichit in the first place—he was never angry, always forgiving. Yuuri vowed right then and there to himself that he'd make their friendship a priority even when they weren't on the same team anymore. Even if they were across the world from one another.

"I totally get it," Phichit continued. "I mean...I guess this is as good a time as any to ask..." he lowered his voice and leaned into Yuuri as they walked. "Is Victor your boyfriend?"

Yuuri hesitated.

"Sorry!" Phichit cried. "I didn't mean to overstep! I just— "

"Honestly," Yuuri told him, "I'm afraid that if I say it out loud, he's going to disappear into thin air."

Phichit's eyes widened. "Oh! So...so when Seung-gil said yesterday that he saw you making out in your dormitory, you— "

"Ah..."

"You were!?" Phichit gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.

"Yeah," Yuuri admitted.

"So how—"

"Well team, let's look on the bright side," Yuuko said, coming up behind Yuuri and Phichit and putting an arm around each of them. "If we lose today, this will be the last match Seung-gil and Takeshi ever play with each other."

"Ooh," said Phichit. "That's almost worth throwing the match for!"

"Kidding, Yuuri! Just kidding!" Phichit smiled at the look on Yuuri's face. "Not like it matters what we Chasers do anyway. No one's gotten a goal past Otabek all year. How long do you think before the Tengu snatch him up?"

"If we lose today?" Yuuri said. "I give it two weeks. The recruiters at the final will have him signed before the end of the match."

"Where is he from?" Yuuko asked. "The teams in his home country will probably want him to sign with them too."

"Kazakhstan," came Yurio's voice from behind them.

"Really?" Phichit asked, turning around to face Yurio and walking backward. "That's so far away! Why doesn't he go to Koldovstoretz? Or even Durmstrang would be closer."

"Koldovstoretz is a shitty school," Yurio said. Not quite how Victor had put it, but then again this was Yurio. Victor was excessively accommodating, Yurio was excessively negative—the truth probably hovered somewhere between their opinions.

"What about Durmstrang then?" Yuuko asked.

"His parents are No-Majs," Yurio told them, glowering. "Durmstrang has a stupid rule about that—they only take the pure-bloods."

 _"Still?"_ Phichit gaped.

"Assholes," Yurio added. He sounded a lot angrier about this rule than he had a few months ago, now that he had realized it was the thing that prevented him from having unfettered access to Otabek Altin. Phichit murmured in agreement and whirled around to face front just as they reached the edge of the cliff.

"Break a leg!" Yurio called to them as he broke off to head down to the stands.

"Thanks?" Yuuri called back, confused. Where had Yurio picked up that No-Maj saying?

Yurio stopped. "Why are you thanking me? I just told you to break your leg."

'It's a No-Maj saying," Yuuko explained. "Means 'good luck'!"

"No," Yurio insisted. "No I mean I hope you break your leg and lose. I'm rooting for Komainu." Yuuri just laughed as Yurio disappeared down the steps toward the shore.

"Ohayo Mahoutokoro!" came Emiko's voice from the commentator's box. "And ohayo Yurio!"

Yurio groaned so loudly that Yuuri could hear it from the cliff.

"Today we've got our exciting tiebreaker match," Ruika said. "Tanuki versus Komainu! The winner will face Suzaku in two weeks for the final match of the year, and I think we're all looking forward to—"

"Hopefully Yurio will come either way," Emiko added.

"—seeing if Suzaku will remain undefeated!" Ruika was clearly trying (and failing) to keep the bias out of her voice while talking about Suzaku. Yuuri wasn't offended—they certainly had a lot to be proud of. "Players, take the pitch!"

Yuuri kicked off, swooping down past the stands.

"Otabek!" Yurio bellowed from the sidelines. Otabek did not turn his head, but he watched Yurio out of the corner of his eye.

Yurio gave him a thumbs up. "Davai!"

Otabek returned the thumbs up.

"...and the Quaffle is released!"

Yuuri dodged as Fen Chiu immediately aimed a Bludger his way the moment the Quaffle was in the air. The Komainu team had obviously shifted their strategy since last game—they were going to keep him off balance and on the defensive for as long as possible. Guang Hong got to the Quaffle first, streaking past Legaspi, and passing up to Yuuko, who was several feet above and to the left. She shot at the left goalpost, but Otabek deftly intercepted the shot and kicked it to Fujiwara.

"The Chius are certainly relentless in their pursuit of Katsuki today," Ruika remarked.

"Oh!" Emiko groaned. "We never came up for a cool duo name for those two! And now it might be the last match they're in this year and we missed our chance."

Once again, Yuuri swerved as a Bludger narrowly missed him, this time from Xing Chiu. If they were going to keep this up all game, it would be nearly impossible for him to look for the Snitch. And if Otabek continued his flawless defense of the goals, as everyone expected he would, both of Tanuki's scoring opportunities would be gone. The Komainu team could have erected a brick wall in front of their goalposts and it wouldn't have been as effective as Otabek.

The eyes of the whole crowd were on the Tanuki Chasers, who bobbed and weaved through every obstacle, only to be stopped every time at the goalposts. Even as the Chasers fought for goals at one end of the field, however, the Beaters were fighting a furious battle of their own. The Chiu siblings sent Bludger after Bludger at Yuuri. Takeshi and Seung-gil, meanwhile, continued a war of words as the hit badly aimed Bludgers at various people. Evidently, Yuuko's stern warning for them to _keep it off the field_ had gone unheeded. Disappointing, but not really surprising.

After fifteen minutes, there was no sign of the Snitch, and the Chiu siblings kept up a relentless assault on Yuuri, while taking occasional shots at Tanuki Chasers. It was at this point when the argument between the Tanuki Beaters reached a breaking point. Seung-gil spat something at Takeshi that nobody heard. Ohashi spotted the Snitch, and zoomed between them at the exact wrong moment—just as Takeshi aimed a Bludger straight at Seung-gil's face. It hit Ohashi right square in the chest, and he spiraled in an uncontrolled descent.

Both Beaters stared, dumbfounded. Takeshi turned to Seung-gil.

"You hit that at me!" Seung-gil shouted at him.

"No, I didn't you jerk!" Takeshi yelled back, though it was pretty obvious that he had.

Time-out was called, and a winded Ohashi was escorted off the field to the nurse. And that was the last productive action the Tanuki Beaters took during the match.

Yuuri spun and sharply ascended as the two Bludgers hurtled towards him—the Chiu siblings were closing in. Without a threat from the Beaters, the Tanuki Chasers attempted more and more daring shots, giving Otabek a chance to make some truly spectacular saves.

Yuuko made as if to shoot at the right goal post, while Phichit swooped in and punched the Quaffle to the center. Otabek, who had made for the right, grabbed the goal hoop and swung horizontally off his broom. With one hand, he grabbed the broom handle—with the other, he pulled himself around and through the hoop. Like some cross between a pole dancer and trapeze artist, he let go of his broom, kicked the Quaffle hard the way it had come, and swung off of the goal post and onto his broom again.

There was an explosion of cheers and screams from the entire crowd. Phichit, completely stunned by this display, ducked as the Quaffle came zooming at his head. The Komainu Chaser Fujiwara grabbed it, and soon had Tanuki back on the defensive. Otabek exhaled deeply, and then resumed his post as if nothing had happened.

The crowd was so immersed in raving about Otabek's save, no one noticed for a good thirty seconds that Yuuri had caught the Snitch. It had been hovering close to the Tanuki goal posts, almost as if it too had been stunned by Otabek's prowess. Yuuri plucked it easily from the air without fanfare.

"Otabek Altin is ready to—wait," Ruika shouted. "Yuuri Katsuki has caught the Snitch! House Tanuki has won the tiebreaker and will advance to the final match against Suzaku!"

Yuuko was so mad at Takeshi and Seung-gil that she didn't even stop to congratulate Yuuri on saving all their asses before stomping toward her feuding Beaters.

"What was _that_ out there?" she roared at them. Yuuko was normally a very sweet girl and Yuuri had only once or twice witnessed her like this—as though she had been briefly possessed by a lion. Takeshi visibly cringed. Seung-gil had the audacity to remain with his arms crossed, though Yuuri saw fear flash through his eyes. _That's right,_ he thought. _You're in for it._

"You guys are _unbelievable!"_ she raged. "You can't hold it together for one— "

Yuuri tuned out the lecture in favor of a hug from Victor, who came running up from the shore and into Yuuri's arms.

"Very clever to use a distraction like that in your favor," Victor said once he'd let go. "I'm impressed."

Yuuri accepted the compliment, though he privately still felt as though he'd just gotten very lucky and that their success could be attributed more to that than anything else, and there was no guarantee he'd get another break during the final match. The one that would decide his future and, quite possibly, Victor's too.

Yuuri groaned internally and wiped sweat from his forehead, preparing for a very long two weeks.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen: Yuuri vs. Incontrovertible Photographic Evidence: The Pregame Special!**

Yuuri awoke the morning before the final match a lot later than usual—apparently Victor had decided that sleeping in would do him some good. The windows had been shaded too, and Yuuri lay in the dark in his futon, thinking.

What would happen after tomorrow? His whole career hinged on the Tengu recruiters liking what they saw. He couldn't describe how he felt knowing that it all might be over in an instant if they didn't.

And what about Victor? What was Victor going to do next season? If he went back to Russia like Yakov and— _let's face it_ —probably everyone else on the planet wanted him to, where would that leave Yuuri? If Yuuri signed with the Tengu, would Victor actually go with him? Or (as Yuuri feared), was this match going to be the end of their...whatever it was?

He thought back on last year—the final match. Ohashi had been weaving back and forth, and he'd remembered the roaring sound in his ears, the tunnel vision...he'd fallen off his broom into the water and he'd been so consumed with anxiety that he wasn't able to cast a spell. His Quidditch gear weighing him down, he sunk like a stone for what was probably about twenty seconds but felt like two hours before a teacher had had the presence of mind to cast a spell to retrieve him from the churning waves.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there stewing silently, but his heart was starting to race and his palms were sweating—like it was happening all over again. Last time he'd felt like this, having Victor by his side had calmed him down a lot.

 _Where are you Victor?_ he thought. _I need you._

As though summoned, Victor slammed open the sliding doors and launched himself into Yuuri's futon with a cry of "Were you still asleep?" Yuuri's eyes just barely adjusted to the light enough to see that Victor was in swim trunks—and he wasn't alone. Another body slammed into him as his futon groaned dangerously under the weight of three full-grown men.

"Can you make me some coffee?" asked the guy who was not Victor. He took the liberty of snuggling up under Yuuri's blankets and trying to spoon with him, ignoring the fact that Victor's perfectly good empty futon was right there next to them. He felt damp skin against his pajamas.

"You guys are soaked!" he exclaimed, scrambling out from under the covers. "You're getting my bed all wet!"

"We just came from the beach," Victor explained. "We wanted to see if you were ready for lunch."

Yuuri got a look at the other guy for the first time and realized he had met him before—Chris. Christophe Giacometti.

"Just let me get changed," Yuuri said, glancing nervously at Chris because they were basically strangers and he hoped Victor would get the hint that Yuuri didn't want to change in front of a stranger.

Chris leaned back on his elbows. "Could I borrow some robes Victor?" he asked sweetly, batting his eyelashes. "I don't want to have to go all the way back to the ship to get dressed."

"Of course!" Victor tossed Chris a set of silk robes and Chris just shimmied right out of his swim trunks in front of both of them like he'd done it a million times before. Yuuri turned his back on them and changed also, albeit more nervously.

"How do you two know each other?" Yuuri asked them over lunch—which was an extremely crowded affair. Chris was not the only one—Victor had evidently invited a whole slew of his Quidditch friends and conveniently forgotten to tell Yuuri, and Yuuri had to pretend he hadn't ever heard of them even though he'd read all their interviews and seen their matches because they'd all discussed Victor at some point or another. There was Michele Crispino and his sister Sara—violet-eyed Chasers on the Cesena Chizpurfles. Sara took an obviously keen interest in Seung-gil immediately, much to Michele's obvious displeasure, but he needn't have worried because Seung-gil entirely ignored her throughout the entire meal. Emil Nekola from the Czech Republic was there too, and—to Yuuri's great astonishment—a boy he'd never seen before sitting close to Guang Hong who could only be Leo De la Iglesia, judging by how pink Guang Hong's cheeks were.

"Chris is my oldest friend," Victor said. "We've known each other since we were children."

"Did you go to Durmstrang too?" Yuuri asked.

"Me? No!" Chris gasped. "I went to Beauxbatons!"

"Chris graduated two years ago and went on to play for the Quiberon Quafflepunchers," Victor explained.

"I miss school," Chris pouted, resting his chin in his hands as he picked at his yakisoba. "I miss the pillow fights in the dormitories and the gossip and those uniforms..."

Yuuri was pretty sure the lack of gossip and uniforms were going to be his favorite things about _leaving_ Mahoutokoro. Chris looked around wistfully at the student body.

"Ooh," he squealed, pointing over at the Komainu section. "Victor, who is Yuri sitting with?"

Yurio, seated across from Otabek and apparently peacefully enjoying his lunch, glared over at them and gave Chris the middle finger.

"That's the Keeper for the Komainu House Quidditch team," Victor said. "The one I was telling you about. He's going to be on a National Team someday for sure. Seems like he and Yurio have become quite good friends."

 _Friends,_ thought Yuuri. _Right. That's what we're calling it nowadays._

"That reminds me!" Chris said. "Did I tell you I moved in with Masumi and— "

"You didn't," Victor gaped.

"Yes!" Chris said, eyes sparkling. "A few months ago! We got a cat too—want to see?"

"Did you say you have pictures of cats?" Yurio was at his side instantly. He eyed the photographs with interest. "Yakov wanted me to tell you that we're all having dinner on the ship," he said to Victor, without taking his eyes off of Chris's cat. "You and Katsudon and the rest of his loser team can come too."

Yuuri and Victor spent the rest of the afternoon giving Chris and the others a tour around the island. Yuuri showed them the school, the beach (Victor and Chris had already covered that in the morning, but they went again anyway), the onsen—and that's where they got stuck around twilight. Chris, Emil, Michele, and Sara parked themselves right in the springs and showed no signs of moving.

"What do you say Yuuri, care for a soak?" Victor asked him.

"No thanks," Yuuri found himself saying. "Would...would you like to go watch the sunset down by the beach?"

Yuuri honestly didn't even know where that came from. He usually went along with whatever Victor suggested or holed himself up in his room if he didn't want to do what Victor suggested but this was the night before a game that would define his future, and if it was going to be the beginning of the end, then he would have this hour or so with Victor alone to watch the sun set over the ocean.

When they reached the beach, Yuuri sat facing the tide, but instead of sitting by his side, Victor sat cross-legged in front of him.

"Don't you want to see the sky?" Yuuri said.

"This view is better," Victor told him, smiling and reaching for Yuuri's hand.

They sat quietly, staring at one another until Yuuri gathered the courage to speak.

"What are we?" he asked.

Victor looked down at their joined hands, smoothing his thumb over Yuuri's palm.

"What is it you want me to be to you?"

Yuuri remembered the first time Victor asked that question, back on this same beach in October. It felt like an entire lifetime ago. He hadn't had an answer then, and he felt that the fact that he did now spoke to how far he'd come as a person over the last few months. Like he'd become a fully-grown man without even realizing it.

"Mine," he whispered.

Victor didn't answer immediately, which, in that other lifetime last year, would've been cause for panic. But he knew now, his implicit understanding of what Victor wanted and how their desires twined together was a reassuring weight in his heart.

Victor lifted Yuuri's hand and kissed his ring finger.

"That I can promise you," Victor said softly.

Neither of them said anything for a long time after that.

Dinner on the Durmstrang ship was at sundown, so Yuuri and Victor made their way directly to the ship from the beach. Victor slung an arm casually around Yuuri's shoulders and led him up the ramp, past the deck and then down a winding wooden staircase inside.

It was like no place Yuuri had ever been before. Dark wood paneling covered the walls, ceiling and floor. In the middle of a room stood an intricately carved and polished dining table with matching chairs set around it. Yuuri and Victor were the last ones to arrive—Victor's Quidditch friends, Phichit, Yuuko and Takeshi were already there. Yurio had evidently invited Otabek as well.

A portrait of an extremely severe-looking woman in a tight bun narrowed her eyes at them disapprovingly.

"Is your Headmaster not joining us?" Yuuri asked Yurio. Yurio glared at him and gestured to the portrait with his thumb.

"Wait," said Yuuri, settling into his seat next to Phichit. "Yakov isn't your Headmaster?"

"Yakov?" Victor laughed. "No, no. Yakov is Headmistress Baranovskaya's ex-husband."

"And assistant," the portrait added.

"Right," said Victor.

Yuuri wanted to comment on the fact that that was a really strange arrangement, but he didn't want to get on the bad side of this portrait.

"The one on the ship reports to the real one," Yurio muttered, glancing up at the portrait with great annoyance.

"So," said Chris, surveying them from the other side of Victor and sticking out his lower lip, "you boys look cozy. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd replaced me as your best friend, Victor."

"Actually Yuuri is my boyfriend," Victor announced to the group, squeezing Yuuri around the waist and planting a kiss on his cheek. Apparently they were sharing that information with everyone now. Nice to know.

Even Phichit's clapping and cry of "OH MY GOD CONGRATULATIONS" couldn't drown out Yurio's voice.

"That's disgusting," Yurio replied immediately, crossing his arms over his chest. Otabek raised an eyebrow in his direction and opened his mouth.

"Don't say anything," Yurio added. Otabek closed his mouth, smirked, and shook his head.

"It's hard to believe, huh?" Yuuri said, settling comfortably into the crook of Victor's arm. "If I'd seen Victor at the World Cup last year, I'd have been too scared to even talk to him."

Something very strange happened just then. Victor, who had been taking a long gulp of Butterbeer, spat his drink almost clear across the table. Every one of Victor's friends, including Yurio, stared at Yuuri like he'd just grown another head.

Victor whipped around to face him. "You seriously don't remember?!" he asked Yuuri incredulously.

"Remember what?"

"Last year during the celebration I brought you into the tent because I thought you were cute and you looked like Victor's type, but by the time I found him to introduce you, you were drunk and you had started dancing," Chris breezed. He reached for his wand—was that _glitter_ embedded in the wood? —and summoned a stack of pictures from a jeweled bag hanging on a rack near the staircase.

Yuuri's heart plummeted as the pictures approached because... _oh no._ His memory of the winner's tent had been arriving, being apprehensive about the idea of meeting Victor and... drinking. He'd woken up in his tent the next morning, assuming he'd gotten a little buzzed and left without speaking to anyone.

"I never go anywhere without them," Chris said with a wink. He presented the stack to Yuuri for perusal.

Yuuri let out a sigh of relief looking at the top picture because...it was just him and Victor twirling, taking turns leading as they danced joyfully around the room. He caught sight of Victor's gramophone as they spun past it. The moves looked familiar though, was—

"Is that the same song that—" he asked Victor.

"Yes," Victor said. He squeezed Yuuri tighter around the waist. "I want to frame this one."

Yuuri couldn't blame him. He tried to memorize the smitten look on Victor's face—a look he'd caught glimpses of over the course of the year. He thumbed through several more of the dancing pictures—they were gorgeous and romantic and—

Uh oh.

"You challenged me to a dance off," Yurio snarled and—yup, there it was. Yuuri appeared to have lost his shirt somewhere between dancing with Victor and dancing with Yurio. To be honest, it was pretty impressive. Plastered, uninhibited Yuuri was not a bad dancer, and he seemed to be holding his own against a sober Yurio, who looked to be getting angrier and angrier as he went. "It was humiliating."

"So _that's_ where you were all evening," Phichit continued, looking over Yuuri's shoulder. "We all thought you went back to the tent and fell asleep after we got separated. You were in bed when we got back."

The pictures got progressively more horrifying as Yuuri worked his way through them. He watched himself losing clothing at an alarming rate until—

The last few pictures were of Yuuri in nothing but his underwear and a necktie doing some kind of midair broomstick striptease. _I wasn't wearing a tie when I got there,_ Yuuri thought. _I didn't even bring my broom._

But as he reached the second to last picture, he got a better look at the handle and realized with horror that it was _Victor's_ broom—the _Kinya_ —and Victor's necktie too, by the looks of it. Christophe appeared to have joined him during some portions of the dance in a similar state of undress.

"Lemme see," said Phichit, grabbing the top photo before Yuuri could snatch it away. He gasped. "Yuuri! That's so dirty!" Yuuko grabbed it from him and crammed her hand in her mouth to keep from laughing.

"I want to frame that one too," Victor said. He pointed to the obscenest of the broomstick strip tease photos. God, Yuuri wished he'd been wearing shorts or something because the boxer-briefs he'd had on during the World Cup left _nothing_ to the imagination.

Victor got out his wand and tapped the picture where Yuuri was now gyrating his hips in the direction of the camera. An identical copy appeared on the table next to them and Victor pocketed it before Yuuri could grab it.

"What?" he said. "For if I'm ever away from you at night."

"Disgusting," Yurio commented again.

The last picture made Yuuri wonder if it wouldn't be better to just Obliviate himself on the spot. There was Victor, clearly sober and fully clothed...and there was Yuuri. Mostly naked. Arms thrown around Victor's neck. Humping him—and not even sexily, because even Yuuri could admit that the broomstick striptease was at least sort of sexy, but this was like watching Victor have his leg humped by a dog. Except it wasn't his leg, and Yuuri was very unfortunately human.

They appeared to be talking, or at least Yuuri was. He didn't know what he was saying and he didn't want to. Victor didn't seem to feel the same way about this picture that Yuuri did because he made a copy of this one too.

Yuuri looked up at the table. Chris smiled and batted his eyelashes, chin resting in his hand. Yuuri's teammates were staring at him as though they'd never seen him before. None of Victor's friends appeared alarmed in the slightest—well, they'd all been there and seen it in person... A noise came out of the back of Yuuri's throat that he could probably never have repeated if he'd tried.

He was saved further humiliation by the arrival of the meal—an interesting and very salty combination of foods he had never seen in his life.

"Do you like it?" Victor asked, holding out a bite on his fork for Yuuri to try. Yuuri hummed in approval because it really wasn't bad. Might take some getting used to if he was going to eat it regularly, but not bad.

"I don't think I could go back to eating like this every day," Victor said. "I've been spoiled by Japanese food." Yuuri's heart fluttered. _Stay in Japan Victor. I'll make you Japanese food for every meal for the rest of your life._

Thankfully, when the conversation started up again, it moved on to talk of professional Quidditch. Chris was talking about a North American Cup he'd gone to see where he'd gotten a chance to skirmish with a Canadian team-the Montreal Manticores.

"...I was _freezing_ ," Chris was saying, "and the other Seeker seemed just fine, I don't know how all of you manage to play in-"

"Which Seeker?" Emil asked. "Is that Jean-Jacques Leroy?"

Yurio made a noise like a cat about to vomit up a hairball.

"You played against _JJ?"_ he asked darkly.

"That was his name!" Chris said, snapping his fingers. "He's very good."

"Not a fan of JJ, Yuri?" Sara asked. "How do you even know him?"

"That guy is a TOOL," Yurio thundered. "My mother knows his stupid girlfriend's parents."

"Actually, they're engaged now," Michele added.

Yurio pulled a horrible face. "Good," he spat. "Hopefully they'll get married and retire to raise their spawn in Canada so I'm not _forced_ to see him again."

Despite Chris's attempt to follow them to their dormitory, Victor managed to extract them from his clutches before bed, insisting Yuuri needed his uninterrupted sleep.

Yuuri wasn't sure what the new protocol for sleeping might be, now that they were officially _boyfriends._ Victor smiled as he pulled on his pajamas and climbed into bed while Yuuri stood by his futon for a truly absurd amount of time just staring at him.

"You need your rest tonight, Yuuri," Victor told him. Was that a hint of...reluctance in his voice? "Get some sleep."

Yuuri couldn't argue with him. He got into bed and fell asleep with Victor's words swirling around like magic in his mind. _That I can promise you..._


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen: The Quidditch Final**

Yuuri had a few seconds upon waking where he gazed at Victor's peacefully sleeping, sun-streaked face before he remembered that that guy—his idol, his mega-crush, his...well, now his best friend too probably, but literally the man of his dreams, was his _boyfriend._ It sounded almost banal when he thought of the word boyfriend because it didn't really encompass the crushing, cosmic love he felt for Victor. Everybody had "boyfriends." Victor was his _soulmate._ They were born to be together, and Victor had purposely sought him out. Victor had abandoned his life in Russia, flown to Japan and fitted himself into Yuuri's life _on purpose_. Because, God help him, drunk-off-his-ass Yuuri had apparently made such a lasting impression that Victor had literally put everything on hold to come for him...

...and in just a couple short hours, they would both find out whether Yuuri was worth the risk. His anxiety about the final match came swarming down around him like a pack of angry dementors with beater's bats, smashing the glowing happiness he felt about his relationship in a swirling cacophony of fears— _you're going to fail, he won't want you once you've failed, you're going to be separated from him forever when—_

"Good morning, Yuuri," Victor practically purred from the other futon, stretching and opening his eyes to gaze unabashedly at Yuuri.

 _How the hell did I pull this off?_ His fears fell silent under Victor's stare.

It was as though he'd blinked and they were out on the cliff, and he'd kissed Victor before they separated without even really feeling it, and he was mounting his broom and kicking off. Streaking upward through the air did nothing to dispel the sweltering humidity of the day. Yuuri looked for comfort in the familiarity of the wind whistling in his ears and found none. There simply was no wind. The reflection of the sun bouncing off the surface of the water was blinding.

"Ohayo Mahoutokoro!" Ruika called to the crowd. "Welcome to our final match of the year—Tanuki versus Suzaku!"

The crowd was enormous today, it usually was. Yuuri had no problem spotting the recruiter for the Tengu sitting in the teacher's section in bright red robes. She held a clipboard and seemed to be conversing with Minako. Yuuri's spirits lifted—it bode well for his luck today that she'd picked a seat next to his favorite teacher. The recruiter nodded and squinted toward Yuuri. Minako waved toward him.

"Good luck, Yuuri!" she bellowed. So much for making the recruiter think Minako was unbiased. Oh well.

"Suzaku has had an absolutely amazing year," Ruika gushed. The Suzaku section roared in agreement. "Especially coming on the tails of last year's humiliating season. They have gone undefeated this year; the first all-witch team I've ever seen at Mahoutokoro— "

"—and while I love the girl power," Emiko cut in, seemingly on topic for the first time in her tenure as a commentator, "let's not forget that everyone's favorite captain Yuuko Tsurumine has led House Tanuki to their second championship match in a row!"

The Tanuki section drowned out Ruika's response with their applause.

"...Katsuki's performance isn't a repeat of last year's final," Ruika shouted over them. Yuuri didn't have to hear the whole sentence to tell it was a jab. He didn't feel as crushed by her words as he normally would—it was like he had Victor's approval as an invisible shield around him. Ruika's opinion of him meant nothing. He only needed Victor's love.

Oh, and the Tengu recruiter. It would be really great if she also loved him.

"Here comes the Quaffle...and the match begins!" Emiko yelled.

Every player hesitated as the Quaffle rose, sizing up their counterparts on the other team. There could be no mistakes, no slip-ups. Each play counted, and the fate of the match could depend on any given pass.

The second hesitation broke, as six amber and amethyst blurs collided. Suzaku emerged first with the Quaffle, and within a few seconds had broken clear of the Tanuki Chasers. Wang was speeding towards the center goalpost, and Mitsumi flew in from the left. Wang feigned a throw to the center, while dropping the Quaffle to Uchiyama, who sped to the left and shot. Mitsumi changed direction a millisecond too late—the Quaffle grazed her outstretched fingers before sailing through the left goalpost.

Yuuri was stunned. They had never lost the first goal that quickly and it didn't bode well for their morale or their chances. Suzaku had improved, if that were possible, since their last match, using plays that Tanuki was wholly unprepared to counter. Their beaters, Murakami and Otgonbayar, had seized possession of a Bludger, and were hitting it back and forth between them, readying a strike against the first Tanuki player to pass mid-pitch.

Yuuri had an idea, and immediately acted. He dived, speeding straight for Matsumoto as Phichit, who had the Quaffle, reached mid-pitch. It worked. Matsumoto's eyes grew wide, and hit the Bludger at Yuuri. He spun on his broom, the Bludger's wake buffeting him as he dodged. Phichit passed the Quaffle to Yuuko, who scored. Yuuri sped back to his previous height. No doubt he had given the Suzaku seeker, Park, ample time to search for the Snitch unhindered, but Tanuki needed the confidence boost after their early setback.

Fifteen minutes in, and the match began to grow brutal. Suzaku had taken a massive lead, scoring fifty points in ten minutes. Takeshi accidentally (or so he said) whacked Uchiyama in the chest with his bat, claiming he thought she had been a Bludger. A thoroughly winded Uchiyama was awarded two penalty shots; one from the foul, and a second because she had been holding the Quaffle. She scored both times.

In retaliation, the next Bludger hit by Otgonbayar broke Takeshi's nose. She claimed she thought he was a Chaser, because he certainly hit a Bludger like one. Tanuki was awarded a penalty for that one, which Yuuko threw with such force at the Suzaku Keeper, Matsumoto, that it rebounded off of her head, hit the inside of the center goalpost, and shot through. The score was now 80-20.

Every time Suzaku scored, Yuuri's stomach sank lower. He was now frantically looking for the Snitch, but it was nearly impossible to tell which, if any, of the thousands of dazzling lights bouncing off the water's surface below was the little golden ball that would decide the match. Yuuri, no matter how much he trusted his team, was certain they could not match the Suzaku players. It would be up to him.

A sudden burst of inspiration drove him downward, until he was skimming the ocean waves far below the heated battle above. The sweltering heat was much more bearable close to the water, and he wouldn't have to compete with the sun's reflection on top of a rival Seeker.

It was hard to tell who was who from this angle, except for the couple of times the Quaffle dropped almost to the water, the raging storm of Chasers in its wake. However, it was clear which team was which—Suzaku scored 40 more points, making the score 120-20. It soon wouldn't matter if Yuuri caught the Snitch at all.

The Tanuki Chaser's caught a needed break when Seung-gil managed to unseat Yoshida from her broom with a Bludger. She fell twenty feet, and belly-flopped onto the water with a resounding splat that could be heard throughout the stadium. A timeout was called while her teammates fished her out. By the time they did, she was thoroughly waterlogged and bruised, and would be unable to continue playing. As Seung-gil had made a legal attack, the Quaffle was Tanuki's.

Unfortunately, the Suzaku players proved nearly as effective with only two Chasers. The Suzaku Beaters, angered by the loss of one of their own, attacked the Tanuki Chasers with renewed vigor. Before long, Yuuko, Phichit, and Guanghong were all sporting several new bruises from grazing Bludger shots. While they were dodging Bludgers, Suzaku scored three more times, making the score 150-20.

To her credit, Mitsumi had made some truly incredible saves during the game—one where she accidentally slide sideways on her broom, and caught the Quaffle upside down—but she was still hard-pressed to keep the Chasers away. Yuuri swore as the Quaffle sailed past her once more-it was now 170-20, and Tanuki would have to score again before Yuuri caught the Snitch.

And then he saw one small, blurred figure streaking toward him. With a jolt of panic, he realized it was Park, and just ahead of her—a tiny golden glimmer. Abandoning all other thoughts, such as the current score, or caution, he spurred his broom forward. Yuuri and Park were speeding toward each other, the Snitch in the middle. They both saw what was coming, but there was no way either of them could stop now.

The two Seekers collided with the force of a bullet train. Park—much lighter than Yuuri—spun in uncontrollable circles, drifting steadily down toward the water. Yuuri's vision was spotty and unfocused, and there was a ringing in his ears that drowned out the sound of the excited commentary from Ruika and Emiko.

A split second later, Yuuri remembered why he had decided to fly headlong into a speeding bullet, and looked around wildly for the Snitch. He found it again, flying swiftly toward the Tanuki goalposts. He shot after it, weaving drunkenly through the mob of Chasers, but somehow finding his way through. The Snitch dove, and so did he.

He heard a sudden rise in the distant cheering that didn't seem connected with his dive, and Emiko's excited voice taking control of the megaphone. It wasn't important.

His head was now throbbing painfully, but he shook it off. He was gaining on the Snitch, and all thoughts of how far down his team was were driven from his mind. He was twenty feet from the Snitch. Now ten feet. And he saw, upside down as he was, Park zooming towards him again, level with the Snitch as he was diving for it.

And then the Snitch slowed, and veered ever so slightly to Yuuri's right. His outstretched hand was now inches from it, but he would need to adjust his dive as it had done, and he didn't have the time.

And so he lunged, and jumped sideways off his broom. In hindsight, it was a ridiculous move, foolhardy at best, deadly at worst. What if he slammed into Park again, this time with no broom to steady himself? What if he didn't take a deep enough breath before diving headfirst into the water at 40 feet? Maybe it was the recent concussion, but none of those factors made any difference when his fingers whisked through the air, closing around the Snitch. It was as if he was suspended in mid-air for a moment, and then he plummeted to the water, hitting it with all the force of a speeding torpedo. Soon, all was dark and calm around him.

He continued to sink deeper and deeper into the water. It was so hard to think. He had caught the Snitch, the game was over. What was the score? Had they won, or lost, or tied? He almost didn't notice that he was losing oxygen. He heard the distorted booming sound of the megaphone, but it was soon lost in an avalanche of cheering that not even the depths of the sea could effectively drown. It brought him back to reality—he fished inside his robes for his wand, pointed it at the dimming light overhead, and shouted, "Ascendio".

A bubble escaped his lips, and all other sounds were deafened by the jet of water that propelled him upward. He saw something floating just above the surface above him, and as he broke through the rippling surface, he recognized his broom. With his wand in his hand, he willed it to catch him, and he landed smoothly on it as the crowd erupted into an ear-splitting roar of unbelief.

"...a hundred and eighty to a hundred and seventy!" Emiko was screaming, only faintly audible above the cheers from below. "House Tanuki wins the match and the Quidditch Cup!"

The team zoomed toward the cliff side as a unit, not so much dismounting as falling into a pile on the grass, jumping on one another and screaming with joy. As he stood, he felt Takeshi's arms lifting him easily into the air. Yuuri had never been hoisted onto six people's shoulders at once before, but he decided in that moment that it was an experience he'd like to repeat again sometime in his life.

And then the rest of the school came pouring up into the fray, and in the blur he felt himself being swept off his feet like a leading lady in an old movie and kissed—hopefully by Victor, but he hadn't really gotten a good look before he'd been grabbed—and there was Minako and Victor's friends and even Yurio, tailed closely by Otabek.

 _I could get used to this,_ he thought as he watched Yuuko holding up the Quidditch Cup and beaming out at the rest of their house to thunderous cheering. The recruiter from the Tengu smiled at him fleetingly, jotting notes onto her clipboard.

The ensuing party was like nothing Yuuri had ever experienced at Mahoutokoro, or maybe even anywhere. Minako brought cases of No-Maj sodas to the Tanuki house dormitories (for the younger kids) and turned a blind eye on the older kids chugging Firewhiskey.

"I sat next to that recruiter during the whole game," she told Yuuri, who politely pretended not to notice the alcohol on her breath. "You got this. She didn't even blink when Takeshi took that Bludger to the face, but I heard her gasp when you jumped off your broom. Oh and speaking of that—are you crazy? You do realize—"

"Yeah," Yuuri beamed. "I know it was crazy."

"You're going to be the best Seeker in the world," she told him, patting him on the back and walking off to congratulate Yuuko.

Victor arrived at his side moments later, pink-cheeked and eyes shining. He wound an arm around Yuuri's waist and snuggled up into his side, burying his nose in Yuuri's hair.

"Having fun?" Yuuri asked him.

"I don't remember the last time I had this much fun," he murmured.

"Not even at the World Cup?" Yuuri said, turning to face him.

Victor shook his head, eyes locked on Yuuri's. They stood that way for a moment—it felt as though the rest of the room had gone fuzzy and faded into the background, but he saw Victor in perfect clarity.

"I think I'm ready for bed," Yuuri said, maintaining eye contact. There was a pause, then Victor nodded slowly.

After saying goodnight to his teammates, Yuuri extracted himself from the party and Victor followed—it seemed to be a common understanding that if Yuuri was going to call it a night, so was Victor, because everyone said goodnight to both of them at once.

He undressed slowly, hanging up his Quidditch robes carefully and sparing a thought for the fact that this was the very last time he'd ever wear them. He rubbed his fingers over the material (still a little soggy from his diving stunt) thinking about what he might do with them now. It seemed silly not to leave them back home in Hasetsu while he went...well, wherever he went, and yet in that moment he was gripped with the desire to haul them anywhere he went like a security blanket.

Victor stood at the edge of his futon furthest from Yuuri, and Yuuri could tell he'd been watching when he turned around to face him. Victor gave him one of those mysterious looks—the half smile, the heavy lidded eyes—and finally Yuuri understood. There was no mystery at all. Victor's inscrutability was entirely in his head. It couldn't have been plainer what Victor wanted—now, and probably since they met.

The space between their futons was suddenly just that—a mere two feet of floor. Yuuri pulled out his wand and flicked it, and the two futons jumped immediately together. Victor's smiled widened as he pulled back the sheets and got into bed. Yuuri took a deep breath and closed the space between them.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen: Yuuri vs. The Future**

Victor's eyes shone in the moonlight streaming through the window and he leaned back on his elbows as Yuuri positioned himself over him.

"Yuuri," Victor breathed, reaching up and trailing his fingertips down Yuuri's neck, dipping below the neckline of his pajama shirt. Yuuri sucked in a deep breath and bent down to kiss him.

The glorious part was that he knew they were really alone. There was no reason for anyone to come into their room; the noise from the shoin would muffle any of the words they whispered to each other in their little cocoon of intimacy. Victor kissed him back passionately, long fingers stroking his chest and the other hand splayed across his lower back. Yuuri used one hand to brush Victor's hair from his forehead. The silvery strands slipped through his fingers—how many nights had he spent at home staring at the lock of hair he'd bought at that auction?

That represented a completely different version of Victor though. That was the world's Victor Nikiforov—who was perfection, an untouchable, two-dimensional deity—the god of Quidditch. He belonged to everyone. And this was _his_ Victor, an eighteen-year-old boy who craved love and closeness just as Yuuri did. This Victor belonged only to Yuuri.

Yuuri felt the cool night air on his skin before he realized that Victor had untied his pajama top from around his waist, and he let the sleeves slide down over his shoulders until he could easily lift his arms out of them without breaking their kiss. Victor's hands were all over him in an instant, gliding over his arms and chest and stomach, nails grazing the back of his neck as Yuuri fumbled for the ties on Victor's shirt.

Victor had been walking around shirtless in their dormitory for probably the better half of the year—actually, he was often _more_ than just shirtless, but this felt completely different to Yuuri as he pulled back to look down at Victor because this wasn't Victor's general, all-purpose nudity. He was exposing more than just his skin to Yuuri—it was like they were stripping off layers of Victor's public persona until he was raw.

Yuuri exhaled—he wasn't sure if the breath sounded more like a pant or a laugh, but Victor gave him a little smile and closed his eyes, arching up into Yuuri and holding him by the hips.

Yuuri dipped down to kiss Victor's neck as he dropped his hands to his chest. Victor inhaled deeply as Yuuri's lips made contact with his throat, and he tilted his head to the side to bare more of his long neck.

 _Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump thump. Thump thump. Thumpthumpthumpthump._ Yuuri reveled in the feel of Victor's heartbeat racing under his palm and the pulsing beat in Victor's neck. Victor's hands left his sides to travel around to his front, brushing across his stomach and fingering the waistband of his pajamas. Victor's hips lifted rhythmically up into him, so softly that Yuuri wasn't sure Victor even realized he was doing it, but it was getting pretty hard for Yuuri to ignore.

"I haven't—" he started to say into the skin of Victor's neck, but Victor just shook his head and untied the drawstring of Yuuri's pants.

"It doesn't matter," he said, stroking down Yuuri's hand—the one that was hovering around Victor's left nipple. "You know what to do."

Yuuri nodded—he...sort of knew what to do. He wasn't even sure exactly _what_ they were planning on doing, but the fact that Victor had all the confidence in the world in him was emboldening enough that he dropped his hand to Victor's pants and untied his drawstring as well. All he could really think was that he wanted to be as close as possible to Victor—to hold him so tightly that they could never be separated. To share his breath and his heartbeat until he could hear Victor's thoughts swirling in his mind and feel his emotions coursing through his veins. And in that moment, in the stillness of their room and the soft glow of the moon, he felt it was almost possible.

Victor pushed Yuuri's pants and underwear down off his hips, and Yuuri was forced to drop onto his back onto the bed next to Victor in order to fully undress. Victor shoved his own pants down and kicked them off as fast as possible—inelegant and impatient, eyes never leaving Yuuri's body. There was no room for nervousness with Victor looking at him like that—with Victor climbing over him and breathing hard in his ear as their bodies settled together—chest to chest, hips to hips. Yuuri's eyes slipped closed at the feel of Victor's erection pressing into his—Yuuri had never once been this hard in his life and he felt almost consumed by arousal. He opened his eyes because _no way_ was he going to miss this.

"I've wanted to see you like this since the moment I first laid eyes on you," Victor murmured.

Yuuri huffed a laugh. "What, naked? You've seen me naked a hundred times."

"No," Victor said, kissing him softly on the lips. "In love with me."

Was it really possible that Victor hadn't realized Yuuri had been in love with him _forever?_ Victor rested his forearms on either side of Yuuri and slid his entire body up and then down in a motion that dragged his dick against Yuuri's—and yep, there was no way around the fact that he was naked with another guy and their dicks were touching. Yuuri had tried thus far to force himself not to think too hard about what was going on below his waist—mostly because it felt...somehow unromantic and kind of trivial but it had suddenly become absolutely impossible to ignore _in a really good way._

"What do you want?" Victor whispered in his ear. "We can do anything."

 _Anything._ The possibilities of that word seemed infinite, but as Yuuri felt the slide of Victor's body against his one more time, all he could think of was _more of that._ He kissed Victor as soon as his mouth was within reach again.

"This," he panted against Victor's lips. He felt Victor's smile more than he saw it. Victor removed his right arm from its post next to Yuuri's head and brought it down between their bodies. Yuuri tried not to whimper as he felt Victor's fingers wrap around them.

"Like this," Victor showed him, sliding his hand up and down in a motion that Yuuri was very familiar with. Yuuri nodded, touching his forehead to Victor's, as he reached down to wrap his hand around both of them. Victor groaned softly at the contact and Yuuri felt them move more smoothly together, a light sheen of slickness on his palm.

Yuuri had a flash of absolute clarity where he realized the full force of the fact that he was _naked in bed with World Champion Victor Nikiforov_ —he tried to imagine what Yuuri-from-a-year-ago would've thought of this situation and came up with nothing. It was almost impossible to believe it was really happening.

Except... _oh_. Victor's fist touched Yuuri's as he stroked up, and Yuuri followed his lead.

 _Up, down, up down. Breathe._

They moved their hands together for a few more strokes before Victor removed his arm to rest it next to Yuuri's head again, supporting himself with his elbow bumping against Yuuri's arm. Yuuri took over by himself—it wasn't really complicated, just like how he did it to himself except both of them at the same— _oh God._ That was the moment when it started feeling really, really, intensely good. To Yuuri's astonishment, he noticed Victor's arms were shaking.

It happened so quickly after that—Yuuri noticed the signs one right after the other. The shaking, the sharp intake of breath, Victor squeezing his eyes shut, and suddenly he dropped his head to Yuuri's shoulder, tense and panting hard. Wetness hit Yuuri's wrist and his stomach. His hand _glided_ over them.

"Sorry," Victor murmured in his ear, but Yuuri wasn't the _least_ bit sorry—that had been possibly the greatest thing that had happened to him in his whole life. He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do at this point, but after a few seconds, Victor snaked his hand back between them again, batting Yuuri's out of the way, and took him in a firm grip, stroking up and down tightly. Yuuri craned up to kiss him, grasping at Victor's shoulders and holding him close as he rocked up into Victor's fist, savoring the feeling of Victor's tongue in his mouth.

Yuuri considered warning Victor that he was about to come, but in that moment he was certain that Victor already knew, so he settled for digging his fingers into Victor's back and groaning against Victor's lips as he did, in deep pulses, consumed by the sensation of Victor's fingers around him.

He pulled away from Victor's face when he was done, which Victor seemed to intuitively understand was an indication that he could stop. Yuuri took the opportunity to look up into his eyes and brush his sweaty hair away from his face.

Victor rolled off of him and Yuuri reached for his wand, cleaning them up with a spell. No sooner had he replaced it at his bedside then Victor was at his side, curling into him and resting his cheek on Yuuri's chest. Yuuri drew words onto Victor's back with his fingers... _I love you...I love you...I love you..._

Yuuri woke up the next morning with Victor still plastered to his side, nose nuzzled into Yuuri's neck. There was no moment of confusion where Yuuri forgot what had happened or why Victor was there, he slid comfortably into consciousness with a solid feeling of security he'd only ever had glimpses of.

Strands of Victor's hair slipped through Yuuri's fingers like silk as he stroked Victor's head, reliving the previous evening in all its glorious detail and sparing no thought for embarrassment. Because nothing of that had been embarrassing—not one moment. It was as though Victor had imbibed Yuuri with all his passion and confidence through the touch of his hands, and Yuuri simply felt loved all over.

Yuuri lay there basking in lazy comfort until he could no longer ignore his need to use the bathroom. Extracting himself from Victor proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated—when he shifted away, Victor simply held tighter. When he pried Victor's arm off of his midsection, Victor's eyebrows knitted together in his sleep.

"I'll be right back," Yuuri whispered to him, climbing off of the futon. Victor hummed in response.

Yuuri slipped a pair of underpants on and padded as quietly as he could out of their dormitory.

He got as far as the shoin before running into Yuuko, sneaking out of Takeshi's dormitory and wearing a way-too-large robe. It couldn't have been more obvious that she was not fully clothed underneath it—she yanked the fabric tighter around herself as soon as she caught sight of him, then seemed to relax a little when she realized it was just Yuuri, though she still fixed him with a wide-eyed stare and her face filled with color.

"I—" she started.

"I never saw you. You never saw me," Yuuri told her.

She nodded and tiptoed her way back to her own dormitory.

Yuuri crawled back into bed with Victor, who was now awake—but no less naked, after returning from the bathroom. He yawned and stretched and curled back around Yuuri, who suddenly felt awkward for a split second before Victor said "That was perfect," as though he'd been reading Yuuri's insecurity from his thoughts. Yuuri smiled and drifted back off to sleep.

Yuuri didn't notice the note on his windowsill until he woke up for real several hours later. He tore open the envelope.

Mr. Katsuki—

Ms. Okukawa has arranged for you and I to have a meeting in her classroom this afternoon. Please arrive promptly at 1:00.

—Hana Usui of the Toyohashi Tengu

It occurred to Yuuri that he _should_ be out of his wits with nerves, but his body just seemed unwilling to freak out with him. In spite of a dull throbbing from the goose egg on his forehead (the only evidence of his collision with Minjae Park), he felt utterly loose-limbed and relaxed. His hands refused to tremble, the cold sweat never came. Victor came up from behind, still naked, and plucked the note from his hands.

"I hope you're not surprised," he said, wrapping his arms around Yuuri's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. They basked together in the sunlight streaming through the window for several minutes before hunger got the best of them and they were forced to dress for breakfast.

"Someday we will have breakfast in bed every morning," Victor told him casually, pulling on a shirt.

Yuuri just barely resisted laughing at him.

The rest of the morning sailed by so wonderfully that Yuuri started thinking he might still be asleep. He and Victor lounged around on the beach, cuddling and watching Otabek try to teach Yurio how play Keeper.

"You should see him with a bat," Victor laughed as they watched him take a whack at the Quaffle with his fist and then let out a roar of frustration when it simply dropped to the sea instead of changing direction like a Bludger would.

"I'm sure he's great," Yuuri agreed.

"He's going to end up playing for Russia," Victor said. "As long as he can learn to control his temper. Durmstrang Quidditch is a lot dirtier than professional—he's not going to like it when fouls are called after he knocks out people's teeth with his bat."

"Yeah," said Yuuri. "It's still surprising. He's got a perfect Seeker body."

"But a Beater's heart," Victor said. "That's what really counts."

"I wish I had his build though," Yuuri mused aloud.

"I don't," Victor said, smoothing a hand over Yuuri's chest. "And besides, you move like a Seeker. That's what I first thought when—"

"People are starting to go in for lunch," Yuuri noticed. "I should eat fast so I'm not late to my meeting."

Yuuri kept waiting for the onset of nerves that never came. Lunch was as casual and relaxing as the rest of the day had been, and he strolled into Minako's classroom after lunch with a confidence he'd never felt in his life. He wondered if it came from Victor—from what they'd done together last night, or maybe just his behavior this morning which was bordering on clingy (in a good way).

Yuuri bowed respectfully to Hana Usui. She bowed back and pulled her clipboard out as she sat at Minako's desk. Yuuri took a seat in the front row.

"I'll start off by saying that your performance yesterday was impressive," said Ms. Usui, shuffling through her paperwork.

"Thank you."

"You can't do that in professional Quidditch though," she continued, and Yuuri knew she was talking about his death plunge.

"I know."

"I wanted to ask what changed between this year and last," she asked, looking him in the eye. "I saw last year's final match too—" Yuuri's stomach twisted, "—and admittedly I'd basically written you off, but apparently I was wrong to do so."

"Well, it probably has something to do with Victor," Yuuri told her.

"Victor Nikiforov? I heard he transferred here from Durmstrang for his final year. Do you know why that is?"

"Yeah, he's my, um...mentor?" Yuuri cringed inwardly. That wasn't supposed to sound like a question, but "yeah, he uprooted his whole life to get in my pants" probably wasn't better, so Yuuri congratulated himself for going with the mentor thing.

"I see," she said. "Well here's the thing, Yuuri. Looking at this year's performance versus last year's, there's really no way for me to tell if you've just improved _that much_ or if you're simply talented but inconsistent. What they _should do_ is send a recruiter to every match of the year and not just the final but...anyway, the school expressed to me that you're interested in signing with the Tengu. Is that true?"

"Yes," Yuuri told her instantly.

"I'm going to have to rely on your word here," she said. "Can you tell me honestly that you are now the kind of Seeker I saw yesterday?"

"Yes." The word was out of Yuuri's mouth before he'd even thought the question through. It came out sounding impressively confident, and what was more stunning—it didn't even feel like false bravado. Yuuri stopped to wonder for a moment when exactly it was that he started believing in himself.

She nodded.

"I'll send you a letter when we've made a decision," she said. "Have you looked into any other teams?"

Yuuri shook his head, suddenly feeling as though he maybe should have.

"I have to make sure you know that doesn't factor into our decision," she told him. "So if the Tengu don't take you, it's worth having a backup plan. Just something to think about."

Yuuri could _guarantee_ that he would be thinking about it. Obsessively. Exclusively. Anxiously. Great.

Due to the fact that he had several _really important_ things to worry about, Yuuri fully expected the good mood that normally succeeded a Quidditch victory to evaporate like the contents of a vanished cauldron, but he found himself incredibly impervious to unhappiness in the following weeks. He even wrote down a list things he should be thinking about, just to try and take himself down a notch.

If the Tengu didn't want him, what was he going to do?

What was going to happen with Victor next year?

Speaking of Victor, how exactly was he expecting to graduate? His grades were just shy of abysmal and Yuuri couldn't manage to get him to care.

Yuuri was unceremoniously interrupted in his list-making by Victor yanking him back onto the pillows. He had to admit that the...uh, romantic situation with Victor made it _really difficult_ to focus on anything unpleasant for long. It became a pattern: Yuuri would start thinking too much, go quiet, and Victor would lower his eyelids and give Yuuri that little private smile and Yuuri would immediately forget whatever was bothering him in favor of more time in bed with Victor. He started to wonder if anyone in the history of the school had ever gotten this much action in the dormitories. Takeshi, their closest neighbor, was more than happy to ignore them in exchange for their complicity in Yuuko sneaking into _his_ room every so often. Yuuri felt that he really wasn't one to judge at this point, so they all just pretended they didn't know what was going on and it worked out nicely.

The one thing he did manage to do alone was send off an application without Victor knowing about it. Honestly, it was such a long shot that he didn't even think it was worth mentioning. He'd be rejected because he had literally nothing to offer the position he applied for, and Victor would never have to know.

Yuuri allowed them one week of slacking off and basking in their victory before he decided that something really had to be done about Victor's grades. Happily, he was now in the position to trade correct answers for kisses, which did more for Victor's study habits than any amount of needling or worrying ever had. His school robes had brightened into a rose-gold color very similar to the one Yuuri's had at the beginning of the year. The one thing Yuuri didn't have to worry about were his _own_ grades—his robes were now such a deep gold they were nearly bronze and he could probably have skipped every homework assignment between the Quidditch final and graduation and still passed easily. Which was a good thing, because he caught himself daydreaming instead of paying attention nearly every class period.

One day, a week before final exams, Yuuri awoke to find Victor sitting on the edge of their futon, looking away.

"What—"

And then his heart dropped into his stomach, because Victor was holding a large envelope with the seal of the Russian Ministry of Magic.

"What's this?" Victor asked. His voice was light, but Yuuri knew him too well by now to think that he wasn't upset.

"Um. It's a...well, I don't know what it is. I haven't opened it yet."

That was a lie. There would be no reason for them to send him an envelope that thick if he hadn't been offered a position, and Victor seemed to know that. He just sat, hair hiding his eyes from view. Waiting for Yuuri to be honest.

"Look, I just thought it would be a good idea for me to try and look for a job out there. So that you can go back to the Skrzak—"

"When did you ever hear me say I wanted to go back to the Skrzak?" Victor asked quietly.

"I didn't," Yuuri admitted. "But Victor, you can't just totally throw away your career for me. I mean, what if I don't get on the Tengu? What's going to happen to us when school ends in two weeks?"

"If I didn't think you were capable of getting onto the Tengu, I wouldn't have come here in the first place," Victor said, and Yuuri could hear the shaking in his voice.

"I'm just trying to be realistic," Yuuri said.

"So am I," Victor replied. "And I want to know: what is your plan? You're going to follow me to Russia and be my housewife—whether I like it or not—if you don't make the Tengu?"

"Well at least we'll be together. Would you like it better if I worked for the Japanese Ministry?" Yuuri asked, throwing his hands in the air.

Victor continued as though he hadn't heard him. "And if you do make the team, which you will, we're what? Breaking up?"

Yuuri's heart clenched and his anger vanished. Something fell into Victor's lap from underneath his hair. Carefully, Yuuri reached out and lifted Victor's bangs from his forehead.

"You're crying."

"I'm angry. What do you want me to do?" he all but snapped.

"I…"

Victor looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. He didn't repeat the question, but he might as well have because it was clear that it wasn't a rhetorical one. _What do you want me to do?_

He tried to understand where Victor was coming from. On the one hand, there was the part of Yuuri that wanted to do _anything_ to keep them close together-whatever menial clerk position, anywhere in the world, and he was certain that Victor also wanted that on some level.

"What do _you_ want me to do?" Yuuri repeated back to him.

Victor took out his wand and tapped his bag. A photograph sprang out and Victor caught it in midair. He shoved it into Yuuri's face. Yuuri watched his own drunk-ass twirling around the Kinya.

"Oh God, not this-" he groaned.

"Look at this," Victor said.

"Why?"

"Because this was when I met you," he said. "This was what I saw. Look at the way you move, your limbs…" Victor traced his finger on the picture where Drunk Picture Yuuri was doing the splits while supporting himself with his hands on the broom. "And then you came over and told me about how you ruined your last season and I just...didn't understand. You have all the talent in the world. And I wouldn't have left the Skrzak for anyone less than you."

"But you do miss Quidditch," Yuuri said, trying not to get distracted by the way his heartbeat sped up at the idea that he was the only thing Victor would've left his team for.

"Of course I do," Victor admitted. "But that doesn't mean I want you to quit."

"Yuuri? Victor?" Phichit's voice came floating in from the shoin.

"We're in here," Yuuri called back.

"You're going to miss breakfast," Phichit told them.

"Coming," Yuuri replied. He turned his attention back to Victor when he heard Phichit's footsteps fade.

"I want you to think about what it is you want. From me and from yourself," Victor said. And then he stood up, pulled off his pajama top and reached for his school robes.

Victor managed to behave throughout the entire school day as though they hadn't spent their entire morning fighting. He was just as affectionate and friendly as always, which Yuuri was not quite able to pull off. He knew he was coming across as stiff and standoffish (and so did everyone else-Yuuko kept asking if he was feeling alright) but couldn't seem to do anything about it.

Yuuri was expecting Victor to roll over onto his side and fall asleep without a word once they were in bed and out of earshot of everyone else. What he didn't anticipate was Victor immediately reaching for him in the darkness, holding him close and touching him like he was certain Yuuri was going to vanish with the rising sun. _This isn't the end of us,_ Yuuri wanted to tell him...but he had nothing other than his own wishes to support that statement, so he didn't say it.

Yuuri woke the next morning to the sound of a crow rapping on the window. He extracted himself with difficulty from the vice grip of Victor's arms and went to take the letter from the crow's beak, wondering if it was a note from home or…

He flipped the letter over and felt his pulse thrumming in his ears. Mr. Yuuri Katsuki. Hana Usui. Toyohashi Tengu.

He must have gasped out loud because Victor woke up and half sat up in bed, squinting at Yuuri.

"You got it," he said simply, and Yuuri knew he had. Just like with the letter from the Russian Ministry, there would've been no reason to send him a whole packet if they simply wanted to tell him they weren't interested. Yuuri opened the seal with trembling fingers.

 _Congratulations...pleased to offer you...position for the upcoming season...second reserve Seeker...details in the following pages...report to…_

Yuuri looked up at Victor.

"Second reserve Seeker," he breathed. And then, because it was no less important, he looked Victor in the eye and added, "We are not breaking up."

He couldn't say in that moment how he knew that, or what they were going to do for the rest of their lives-but he couldn't have been more positive. Victor smiled and closed his eyes.

"Of course we're not," he said like he'd known that all along. "Come back to bed."


	20. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Yuuri Katsuki landed facedown in a dirty alleyway, scrambling for his glasses as they skittered several feet away and letting go of the old hat he'd been clutching. Portkey was still his least-favorite way to travel, but it certainly beat Apparating thousands of miles and splinching himself in two different continents. He inspected his glasses for cracks, but knew he couldn't fix them if he found any-it wouldn't be a good idea to do magic in an unfamiliar place in the No-Maj world. He suspected that as soon as he stepped out of the alley, he'd be in…

Yup. The middle of St. Petersburg. Cars zoomed along past him as he tried to get his bearings. He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder, shivering a little in the frigid wind and scanning the crowds of people walking past.

He made his way a little further along the street to a footbridge crossing over a frozen lake which seemed slightly less trafficked than the busy sidewalks. A family of people in big coats passed in front of him and as he peered around them he caught a flash of silver hair. Yuuri exhaled, breath escaping his lips in cloud of freezing mist. Even now, having Victor so close took his breath away.

Yuuri would've shouted his name, but his throat felt too tight to speak, so instead he leapt forward, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him toward Victor. As though he'd been summoned by Yuuri's joy-which felt so thick in his heart it was almost tangible-Victor turned around and met his gaze, eyes bright and shining in the cold sunlight and arms open wide to welcome Yuuri home.


End file.
